Bela was the gentleman Dracula with the cape and slow phonetically spoken English, Max Schreck the pure image of evil and the plague, Carlos Villarias the suave and debonair Dracula pre-Gary Oldman, but where does Christopher Lee belong in the continuum? He is capable of fantastic and debonair movement yet when the bloodshot eyes are in attack mode, he is the pure image of evil, Lee is a lusty sort of Dracula, his seduction skills carefully orchestrated full of a melancholy yet a more physically violent type that Lugosi could never be.
This is the thing about Lee as Dracula, he barely has to speak to come across as commanding. Perhaps it is his 6'5" height (which got him the job in 1957's "The Curse of Frankenstein"), posture and body language of a nobleman, shoulders forward in an intimacy with Jonathan Harker in the first movie and an extraordinary sadness and melancholy in his eyes during all of "Dracula Has Risen From the Grave" (1968). But with what little dialogue he is given, it is spoken with a great command. In his first scene, Lee's musically trained intonation is both quick and hurried, almost as if one is meant to pay more attention to his rather deadened yet strangely intimate gaze. Even a flash in his eyes towards Jon Van Eyssen's Harker immediately gives away not just attraction, but the weakness for Mina's bare skin.
But as the films progress, the dialogue all but diminishes and little flashes of that nobleman presence all but disappears to only reappear every so often. "All they do is write a story and try and fit [Dracula] in somewhere, which is very clear when you see the films. They gave me nothing to do! I pleaded with Hammer to let me use some of the lines that Bram Stoker had written." ("Total Film - The Total Film Interview - Christopher Lee") In his second film as the Count, Lee all but gave up on the dialogue he was given. "I read the script and the lines were literally unsayable. They were not Bram Stoker. This was a great fight I used to have over the years with Hammer, I kept on saying why don't you use Stoker's words, Stoker's dialogue, if you like. [...] So I said I'm sorry, I'm not saying these lines so that you could get a terrific laugh." ("Christopher Lee on Bela Lugosi, Dracula, and Hammer scripting - YouTube")
But what came out of classy abhorrence resulted in a stunning animalistic performance in "Dracula, Prince of Darkness" (1966) in which Lee never once spoke except for hissing noises when provoked "with teeth bared like some kind of wild, ravenous animal. His predatory behavior carries an overt sexual threat." ("Dracula, Prince of Darkness") This only makes the scene when he compels and bares his chest to Suzan Farmer's Diana Kent strangely tentatively and melancholic yet carnal all at once. Gone are all prior scenes of the overuse of widened eyes and bared teeth and here is Dracula, whether in manipulation or sincerity, with an odd terror in his eyes that was not reserved for Barbara Shelley's more willing role of Helen.
Personally, I have to believe this odd melancholy is what separates Lee from the rest of the Draculas in film history. There is almost a formula all of the movies carry and it's focused on the vampire easily feasting on the more willing victim when pining for the second. In "Horror," naturally, it's Mina for Lucy," "Prince of Darkness" Helen for Diana, "Risen From the Grave," Zena for Maria and so on. But there's something incredibly striking in the latter film. Waiting for Maria to invite him into her room for her to become fully his, Dracula steps out from the darkness, a strange shade perhaps purposefully brightens across his eyes. Usually in the other films, Hammer has made the eyes an important feat of their vampire, always keeping them at eye level if not further up to show dominance and height over a victim. But here they are as sad than when he revealed himself to Helen in "Prince of Darkness." But is it sincerity or purposeful manipulation? Either way it's beautiful and shows something quiet before Dracula's natural violence.
The eyes have been important to the art of the Dracula films, especially since Hammer Productions is specific in their visuals ranging from bright blood to their use of Eastman color in each frame. In the video "Dracula, Prince of Darkness: Behind the Scenes at Bray," Lee, over commentary, laments having to wear "contacts with salt underneath them" which are the now iconic red contact lenses only placed in for close up shots when he compels or acts out. The difference quickly turns from those sad and soulful eyes. During the hypnotic finale in "Horror" as Dracula is dragging and gripping onto van Helsing's neck, his body language is as slow and calm as his eyes when we first met him. It's as if partaking or violently taking over humans is like sipping a fine wine. His height is gloriously taken advantage of in dominance and poise as Peter Cushing's body language is erratic and angry in comparison.
But not everyone appreciates this incarnation of the famous vampire. 1958 critic A.H. Weiler of the New York Times describes Lee's performance as "grim but not nearly so chilling as Bela Lugosi in the title role." Thankfully, in the trade journals from 1958, Lee "is a real fright as that royal fiend" and time has made fans out of many within the cult of Hammer. "One moment he is a perfect gentleman with manners and courtesy, the next moment he is transformed into an almost-rabid monster, displays raw, animalistic instincts like never before. He possesses a more sexual, sinister element..." ("Retro Review: Horror of Dracula - Daily Dead") Six days after Lee's death in 2015, Tim Stanley of the Telegraph perfectly memorialized that "no other actors [...] have captured the ambiguity of Dracula like Lee did. Through association he is, like the vampire, immortal." Films Available Online
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