Bounding Into Halloween Unearths True Graveyard Classics For Night 29 With ‘Dracula (1958)’ & ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)’
There are only three nights left in our epic October-thon, but don’t worry. There are still nine more bangers to go before we meet the much hated first day of November. Until then, let’s go out in style. Tonight are two films that came out a long time before most of us here were even born, but will still be timeless long after we’ve all rotted away to dust. It’s time for some of that OG Horror.
Dracula (1958)
Before I begin, I would like for all the Bela bots out there to please calm down. He was amazing in his 1931 portrayal of the Count, and he will always be officially the first one to play him, but the reality is that Christopher Lee is the best. Take as much time as you need to process this.
Now, where was I?
Here is where it all started, friends and neighbors! This is when Horror was zapped back to life by the British studio, Hammer Films. Their name that hits the nostalgia nerve for multiple generations of horror fans, and for damn good reasons. They took the Golden Age monsters from Universal, stripped off all the decayed Hollywood fluff, and took them back to their dark Gothic roots.
This loose as Hell adaptation of the classic Bram Stoker novel is the first feature released by Hammer, and the company would go on to dominate the Horror market for over a decade afterwards. It stars acting legends Peter Cushing, Michael Gough, and the one, the only Sir Christopher Lee. This…is…DRACULA…in Technicolor.
The year is 1885, and Van Helsing (Cushing) arrives at the Klausenberg Inn in search of Jonathan Harker (John Van Eyssen). The innkeeper’s wife hands him Jonathan’s diary, and this leads him to Castle Dracula where he finds his friend lying in a coffin. Harker had been turned into a filthy clot-sucker by one of the brides of Count Dracula (LEE) after a botched assassination mission.
Helsing mercy-kills his friend before he even has a chance to go out, and have fun with his new vampire powers. Oh, were you expecting another retreat of the original tale? Not this time! This movie is about to go even more off-script. Buckle up, tourists!
Van Helsing goes back to England to tell Lucy (Carol Marsh) that he just killed her fiancée with a sharp piece of timber, but she was stricken ill, and bedridden before he could be the actual cause of her malady. Treating the patient is Dr. Seward (Charles Lloyd Pack) with Lucy’s best friend Mina (Melissa Stribbing), and her husband Arthur (Gough) providing the very useless emotional support.
The Elseworlds couple tell Helsing that Mina is suffering from anemia, but he’s not buying that story. So, the fearless vampire hunter sets a trap with Lucy as the bait, and that would start an epic cinematic beef between him and Dracula that would continue for four more films.
As great as the old black & white vampire movies are, there’s nothing better than seeing the bright red dripping off a pair of ravenous fangs, something that goes unnoticed in this more desensitized age.
No matter how many times a person watches this, it’s insane to see Michael Gough not looking that much younger 29 years before he played Afred Pennyworth in Tim Burton’s murderous take on Batman, but then he was also in his 50s.
Peter Cushing is great as the Count’s eternal foe, and almost as ruthless as the darkness he’s trying to slay. Whether he’s on a doomed space station, or trying to stake a ghoul through the heart, he’s always the best actor in the place. Well…at least until Christopher Lee enters.
He was a total badass before he ever stepped in front of the camera, let alone before he played the Prince of Darkness. For any who doubt, go take a look at his life story, and lineage. He would reprise the role nine more times (seven of them with Hammer), and this one more than likely contains the most dialogue by him. Listen for yourself over on Prime at a cost of a few pints.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)
As much as the silent version of this film from 1920 with John Barrymore (in a genius performance) deserves to be a part of this month-long horrorthon, this disturbing 1931 adaptation of the 1886 novel by Robert Louis Stevenson is the better film.
Not only because it’s a better made/acted film, but because this came out during the wonderful Pre-Code era of Hollywood. It was a magical time when films didn’t even have to worry about an envelope to push, and went harder with content. That was before the much despised Hays Code would go into effect, and wreck cinema with thirty-four years of milquetoast garbage.
Not this movie, though! This is something most people wouldn’t expect from a movie that’s coming up on a century in age, and it will make the darkest of edgelords (with at least a speck of soul left in them) do an uncomfortable shift in their seat. With phenomenal performances all around, but most especially from the star, Fredric March, this is ‘The Extremely F—-d Up Case of’…Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
We have arrived in Victorian London where friendly ol’ chap Dr. Henry Jekyll (March) is struggling with duality. He has fooled himself into thinking he can eliminate evil from the human psyche, and that the fog of London is clouding their bloody minds.
The good doctor believes that there are two souls within us – one good and one bad. Instead of choosing which soul to feed, his solution is to consume solutions of only God knows what until it’s washed us out, and he claims to be close to the breakthrough that will bring eternal smiles to everyone.
Hey, The Joker would finally bring that to fruition in Batman #1 nine years later. Anyways, the people hearing him rant about this are just as skeptical as we would be right now in 2024.
Just when this guy’s life seems it could be any less smile-inducing, there’s his fiancée Muriel’s (Rose Hobart) overbearing father, Brigadier General Sir Danvers Carew (Halliwell Hobbes). This hardass loves busting Henry’s chops. He even set their wedding date, and you don’t want to piss off a guy with that many titles in front of their name. In a huff, he leaves their house, but not before saving a local lounge singer, Ivy Pearson (Miriam Hopkins), from an attacker.
Henry takes Ivy back to her place, and she kisses him when they try to part ways. He doesn’t pull away, but just in time for Dr. Lanyon (Holmes Herbert) to walk down that same exact strip of sidewalk. Lanyon reads his friend/colleague the riot act on their walk, and this pushes Henry into a chemical drug bender that makes Timothy Leary look like a glue-sniffing kindergartener.
At the end, he has reached a breakthrough. However, it’s not the one he was expecting. Dr. Jekyll’s latest beaker broth has made his Id into a separate personality that takes over when he drinks it. When it does, it changes his appearance in very primal ways, and he becomes Mr. Edward Hyde (also March), a loose cannon of violence, impulse, and excess.
The polar opposite of Happy-faced Hank, and his pathetic lifestyle, Mr. Hyde is ready to raise Hell on the streets of London, but not before going to see a certain lounge singer first.
And THAT is where I stop giving away spoilers. If you’ve seen the movie, you understand. If not, then don’t expect to be smiling by the end. It’s a harsh film that shows what happens when scientific curiosity claps human nature too hard, and the horrible consequences that follow.
March would get the Oscar nomination for Best Actor, but he had to share it with another actor, and that’s Hollywood. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is on Prime, but like old dejected Dr. Jek, the breakthrough will cost you. The trailer is free, though.
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