It's
Halloween and I salute my favorite horror movie star, the eternally
cool Christopher Lee. Lee was cousins and spied in WW2 with OO7 creator
Ian Fleming. He holds the Guinness Book of World Records for Actor
With Most Film Credits. He's been in some of the greatest movies of
all-time and some of the worst, however he always makes them better. He
was the definitive "Dracula," "Mummy," & "Frankenstein Monster" in
the Hammer Horror films and was a Bond villain in "The Man With The
Golden Gun," and audiences today know him from the "Star Wars" and "Lord
of The Rings" sagas and Tim Burton's films. He also records Heavy
Metal and Opera records. Still going strong at 90! Cheers! Here's a
look at 10 of his best!
On the cover of the great Paul McCartney album "Band on the Run." Also on the cover is the equally cool James Coburn
Here's the trailer for a true gem of a film that Christopher Lee did for the great Billy Wilder, "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes." This is a wonderful film and its failure at the box office severely affected the masterful Wilder. Lee plays "Mycroft," Holmes' older and smarter brother. If you ever get the chance to watch this film, please do! Here it is! A wonderful, original story by Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond based on the Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle.
Here
is a full movie that is one of Christopher Lee's best, "Horror Hotel" aka "The City of The Dead." Co-starring Venetia Stevenson who would marry one of the great Everly
Brothers. It's a bout a curse put on a small New England town by a
witch. Very moody and scary film.
Lee as the Bond villain "Francisco Scaramanga" in the underrated "The Man With The Golden Gun.
Here's
Lee co-starring with fellow Horror Icons Boris Karloff and Barbara
Steele in the very stylish film "The Crimson Cult." One of the better
Devil worshipper movies. Complete film here
This
is Lee in a scary "Alfred Hitchcock Hour" episode where he is a real
ghoul recruited by Hollywood types to be in a horror movie. Very good!
Gotta
include one of these, here's Lee in his signature role as "Count
Dracula" with his longtime co-star and good friend Peter Cushing in "The
Satanic Rites of Dracula."
Last but not least is a public domain gem made in Spain with the leftover model trains from "Dr. Zhivago" produced by the great and notorious producer/writer Philip Yordan and Bernard Gordon for their Scotia Films is the wonderful Euro Horror film "Horror Express." This film has a great cast starring Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and Telly Savalas along with some familiar Euro Horror faces. It's a really wild mishmosh of genres and is terribly entertaining and gained a real cult following through its many tv showings in the 70's and 80's. Enjoy!
Here is Lee receiving his Fellowship Award from BAFTA in 2011 presented by Tim Burton and given a loving reception by the star studded crowd.
