Having Some Sympathy and Some Taste

I couldn't manage to sleep more than six hours for some reason. Unbelievably groggy to-day. I watched three movies last night. I guess I'm enjoying having a lot of extra time before I have to go to school on Monday. I watched Vertigo, The Vampire Lovers, and the 1925 Ben-Hur, that last being the only one I hadn't seen before and I'll probably write about it another day when I can sound halfway intelligent.

The Vampire Lovers I'd actually been nursing for about a week. It's become one of those movies I like to have always on tap and then I try to make one viewing last several days. It's just such lovely mental spackle. Beautiful vampire lesbians and some great actors in Ingrid Pitt and Peter Cushing with the knockout Madeleine Smith.

But mostly I just like watching Ingrid Pitt's face. She has something like her fellow Hammer stars Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee--a fundamental sensitivity that animates her expressions and perhaps a mathematically perfect arrangement of facial features to strike a certain chord in the viewer. I would find it hard to believe anyone's not rooting for Mircalla despite the fact that she's written as the villain.

Certainly Pitt had some extraordinary life experiences to back up that aura. I'd rather like to see this animated film;