Kicking a peach pit till I worry it's blue

[sovay]

Generally I appreciate axial tilt, but not always the resemblance between walking out for groceries at four-thirty in the afternoon of a hard-raining November and an all-night convenience store run. The brightest thing that wasn't the headlights was the scarlet maple in the war memorial.

It is incredible to me that I have been laid off for a month and gotten so little done with my theoretically free time. Mostly I seem to spend it the same kind of exhausted and seeing more doctors than anyone else. I keep reminding myself that I was supposed to be on medical leave, not vacation. It does not improve the sensation of a decaying orbit.

Immediately on concluding Lust for a Vampire (1971), spatch and I dubbed it Tits for Dracula for its plenitude of full-frontal yet curiously unsexy cleavage, as if it were enough just to have the buxom playmates of its Styrian girls' school breasting boobily all over with their tops occasionally falling down even as any of its exploitation potential as a Carmilla retelling is neutralized by the heterosexuality of its titular affair. Major props to Ralph Bates for turning himself into a horrible little gremlin of an occult-obsessed tutor who in one of the film's only original points tries to offer himself to its resurrected Mircalla Karnstein as her Renfield and is pathetically rejected, drained just enough to kill but not even to enthrall him. Major demerits for the post-dubbing of a modern pop ballad over the aforementioned central het scene from which neither of us ever recovered even a push-up of disbelief. Rob swears it was not in revenge that he introduced me to the googly-eyed marionette monster of The Giant Claw (1957).

This obituary of James Watson was like witnessing a murder from beyond the grave and he had it coming.

Comments

[sovay]

Oh, yeah, just a head's up re. the sexploitation, really. I understand that was the worst Hammer got in that direction.

I appreciate the thought. I have a decent tolerance for unmotivated nude scenes in this era of horror film—I apologized to spatch last night because I had forgotten about one in To the Devil a Daughter, which I was showing him as long as we were watching late Hammer—and in this particular case it was randomly inappropriate enough to be hilarious.

As I said, it's not that I don't like the more classic Hammers, it's just that I came to it as part of a string of Dracula adaptations, and it took a little while to adjust to the fact that it just wasn't going to give me what the others did, and to just take it for its own thing.

I wasn't trying to persuade you to like them more than you do! I wanted to make that clear, having been very tired at the original time of this comment. I meant it about individual mileage. I also wanted to ask, since I thought I had, what's present in so many other Dracula retellings that isn't a factor in Hammer's.

I think I came across it first in Vampire Circus, so I recall that one more. Although VC is another game of multiple parts, but I did overall like most of the parts, or find them interesting enough. It is a different take, too, which after all those other vamp entries is commendable.

Either you or handful_ofdust has recommended that one to me before, so it's been on my radar. (And seems to be currently on Tubi with a bunch of other Hammer, although not The Brides of Dracula, which I am glad you managed to snag on DVD along with Kiss of the Vampire! The only Hammer I own is a six-film set of their mostly thrillers which is where I got Cash on Demand and The Damned. Technically I have some other DVDs including Twins of Evil which Gemma sent me when she was winnowing her collection, but thanks to circumstances they are presently in storage.)

How else would one react to The Vampire Lovers?

It was Carmilla! It was the '70's! How could you shortchange the lesbianism? And yet!

Honestly, this whole trope is such catnip to me, it explains nearly everything about my reaction on its own.

And it feels like a bait-and-switch. The plot devotes sufficient attention to the character, especially once it bends toward a rational investigation of a supernatural phenomenon, that she feels as though she should be instrumental to the climax and instead after all that build-up she just disappears in the wave of pitchfork-wielding villagers who come out of the same nowhere. It could be part of the general incoherence of the film, but it also feels kind of personally insulting.

I actually became curious enough about what the hell had happened with Lust for a Vampire that I hunted down the relevant chunks of oral history with Tudor Gates and Jimmy Sangster and neither of them exactly had an answer except that both of them agree that it did the production no favors to lose Terence Fisher, neither of them had a choice about the casting of Yutte Stensgaard, Gates thinks it compounded the problem to lose Peter Cushing, Sangster dealt better with that aspect because Ralph Bates was willing to jump in as a favor at the last minute (and turned in a very different characterization from anything Cushing would have done with the part) but had a terrible time with the producers, whom he remembers trying to interfere from the very first shot. He didn't get final cut on the film. "And that terrible song they put in the middle—I remember Ralph Bates and I went to see it at the Odeon in Shepherd's Bush or somewhere like that and when they started singing, we both sunk down in our seats, we were so embarrassed. And there was nobody in the cinema anyway! But we were so embarrassed."

I actually met him first in a sitcom me and my sister watched in the 90s, called Dear John. I don't know how it holds up, but I do remember it being low key and him being very good in it, and so he did finally get to cement his fame in a much more sympathetic role, before he sadly died too soon.

I saw that in his filmography! It made me happy to know about—and it made sense to me instantly that he would have been good at comedy—and then spatch turned out to have seen some of it and remembers him being very appealing as a slightly crumpled normal person in a singles club full of absolute weirdos.

I just checked and actually he was Thomas Culpeper in the BBC Six WIves

Speaking of there being like fifteen actors in television.

Thriller caused my limited tolerance for preying on and gaslighting hysterical females in the 1970s, especially by skeevy sex killers to hit the floor and indeed sink part of the way into the basement, so that makes me a little wary of Fear in the Night, but it does sound very intriguing, so I shall certainly keep an eye out for it!

No shade if you maxed out on gaslighting! But if it does come around and you try it, I hope you enjoy.

[thisbluespirit]

I also wanted to ask, since I thought I had, what's present in so many other Dracula retellings that isn't a factor in Hammer's.

I don't really know, but the rest are very iddy and fascinating to me, even when they're bad, but somehow Hammer only hits that on much rarer occasions. And don't worry, I didn't think that, of course (♥) - I am also pretty ill this week, and I didn't want you to think I don't enjoy the more iconic entries too! It was just a specific context to come to the series in, and of course, Lee and Cushing are the most iconic in the roles still here in the UK & I already knew something of how great they both are & how much other people loved Hammer, so my expectations were maybe too high when I went in. As I said, I adjusted and came back to enjoy! But I do get very intrigued therefore by some quite random installments into the canon as a result.

Either you or [personal profile] handful_ofdust has recommended that one to me before, so it's been on my radar. (And seems to be currently on Tubi with a bunch of other Hammer,

I don't think I've recced it as such, because it was definitely one I would need to rewatch - my reaction to the first 5 mins was just, "I don't know if I can cope with Hammer doing a vampire Gary Glitter" but it did get very interesting overall & I'd certainly say it was worth your time. What I did do was write a ficlet for Laurence Payne & Adrienne Corri's characters & I'm pretty sure you were kind enough to read it. (My previous experience of Payne had been in DW, and good, but not in any sense that had led me to expect he might be very pretty and sad in a Hammer, and AC is always very good).

I actually became curious enough about what the hell had happened with Lust for a Vampire that I hunted down the relevant chunks of oral history

I hadn't gone looking for further interviews, but while I don't remember details now from the doc I watched, the bts comments on that one were pretty awful all round, including for the actors forced to do the nudity, so that sounds about right. :/ The 1970s was difficult for those kind of British series - the Carry On films had trouble navigating it, too. (Their equivalent of Lust is Emmannuelle which I have never watched because it does not sound like anything I want or ever need to see) - what was shocking/'naughty' in the 50s and 60s suddenly wasn't, the UK film industry was struggling generally, and there was so much more competition in that line - but trying to match the worst of the rest at their own game is never a plan.

I remember Ralph Bates and I went to see it at the Odeon in Shepherd's Bush or somewhere like that and when they started singing, we both sunk down in our seats, we were so embarrassed. And there was nobody in the cinema anyway! But we were so embarrassed."

Haaa, oh dear. At least I have a ff button. XD

and then [personal profile] spatch turned out to have seen some of it and remembers him being very appealing as a slightly crumpled normal person in a singles club full of absolute weirdos.

My memories of it are vague but very positive, and that does fit what I do recall to an exact T.

No shade if you maxed out on gaslighting! But if it does come around and you try it, I hope you enjoy.

I might have to investigate the Thriller boxsets and find out why I didn't watch the Ralph Bates one, too - or if I have blocked it from my mind, lol.

[sovay]

I don't really know, but the rest are very iddy and fascinating to me, even when they're bad, but somehow Hammer only hits that on much rarer occasions.

Fair! spatch has been having to listen to my not especially original but heartfelt manifesto about the novel, i.e. how important it is to me that the characters do not know for ages what is going on—that a mythical monster has moved in on their modern world—and then even when they do know, they have no guidelines for dealing with it except the trial and error of folklore and literally praying it works; the epistolary structure makes it the rational document of a deeply irrational experience and a record of the pieces no one put together until it was all over and the pattern could be properly seen. That amateur quality is absent from most of the adaptations I've seen, the 1977 Count Dracula being a notable exception. The Hammer Dracula mythos throws it completely out the window, which is part of the reason that I prefer The Brides of Dracula to their Dracula, since the former does not constantly remind me that the relation to the source material is mostly "a vampire and some names."

What I did do was write a ficlet for Laurence Payne & Adrienne Corri's characters & I'm pretty sure you were kind enough to read it.

I did! It probably is what I am remembering as your recommendation, since it made a pretty compelling argument for seeing the film.

the bts comments on that one were pretty awful all round, including for the actors forced to do the nudity, so that sounds about right.

That unfortunately tracks with the other awful behind-the-scenes story I know from the studio around this time, the rape scene in Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed—1969—which traumatized both Peter Cushing and Veronica Carlson and which Terence Fisher didn't want to shoot and which was so sloppily retconned into the script at the insistence of the producers that it has no effect whatsoever on the plot and somewhere there must be a version that cuts it out because seriously.

Haaa, oh dear. At least I have a ff button.

Not having researched the film ahead of time, we had no idea the song was coming and had more of the Sangster/Bates experience. We may have started laughing hysterically.

My memories of it are vague but very positive, and that does fit what I do recall to an exact T.

Aw. Noted for the more distantly television-watching future.

I might have to investigate the Thriller boxsets and find out why I didn't watch the Ralph Bates one, too - or if I have blocked it from my mind, lol.

Godspeed!

(I am sorry you are more ill this week; I hope it improves, or you do.)

[thisbluespirit]

my not especially original but heartfelt manifesto about the novel, i.e. how important it is to me that the characters do not know for ages what is going on—that a mythical monster has moved in on their modern world—and then even when they do know, they have no guidelines for dealing with it except the trial and error of folklore and literally praying it works; the epistolary structure makes it the rational document of a deeply irrational experience and a record of the pieces no one put together until it was all over and the pattern could be properly seen.

Yes, it's really good (and also does the iddy/fascinating thing to me). I need to re-read it sometime, because I only read it once, when I was writing Yuletide fic for calliopes_pen).

That amateur quality is absent from most of the adaptations I've seen, the 1977 Count Dracula being a notable exception.

Yes, most of them don't really have the run time for it, I suspect. I'm trying to think of the ones I've seen and it varies a lot, although the epistolary aspect is of course hard to do in visual media anyway. I don't think anyone in the BBC 2006 one knows what's going on, but that's because they merged their Van Helsing with Renfield and shut him in a cupboard till the last 6 minutes. (If you have a David Suchet in your cast, do not do this to him. It is not a plan). But Arthur sort of knows anyway because it's all his fault because he joined a blood cult to cure his syphilis & invited Dracula there in the first place. Honestly, I'm not sure how anyone in that version survived, now that I think about it. The 1968 lot do feel very amateur while struggling to combat it with science & there's not an easily established vampire lore to hand, so that's a bit nearer, but Van Helsing does come with some experience of something, it seems, if only because Dracula is aware of him, but that's a little nod to Hammer, although of course, probably also the 1931. (I was forgetting how much the 1968 draws on the 1931 - it's been a while). The others I've seen are Hammer's Drac, Count Dracula, BSD & the 1931, which I'm pretty sure you've also seen anyway. I sort of got stuck trying to find the rest after that, in my usual cheap DVD fashion, but I must keep an eye out again, because I enjoyed watching all the Dracs a lot.

TV ones are slightly more clueless, probably, though? And Hammer, as you say, just does it own thing for most of the time, indeed.

which was so sloppily retconned into the script at the insistence of the producers that it has no effect whatsoever on the plot and somewhere there must be a version that cuts it out because seriously.

Oh, gosh, you would hope so.

(I am sorry you are more ill this week; I hope it improves, or you do.)

Thank you! I had to have a filling last Thurs, which was good in some ways, but unfortunately anaesthetics and CFS do not play well together, and while it's been getting better these last few days, this is the first day I'm not quite as groggy since.