The Unholy Present Perfect

Will Dracula rise again? With a title well ahead of you is 1968's Dracula has Risen from the Grave. A Hammer horror film directed by Freddie Francis, it features Christopher Lee as Dracula but no Peter Cushing this time around. His adversary is a steadfastly honest young baker played by Barry Andrews, a dead ringer for Roger Daltrey.

I kind of hoped it was Daltrey when I saw him, despite not seeing Daltrey's name in the credits. The Who versus Dracula? I'd be down for that. But Andrews is charismatic in his own right.

The story feels suspiciously like a screenplay originally written without Dracula or even supernatural horror in mind into which Dracula was inserted. Screenwriter Anthony Hinds seemed preoccupied with the worth of honesty. Paul, Andrews' character, wants to marry the daughter of the Catholic Monsignor (Rupert Davies) who's just gotten home from putting a big crucifix on Dracula's castle, to make sure the Count never, ever rises from the grave. Along the way, he inadvertently attracts the eye of Dracula, who has already risen from the grave.

Paul's father is played by Hammer regular Michael Ripper, once again playing a tavern keeper. He advises his son that honesty isn't always the best policy, that he should know when to play things close to his chest. Unfortunately, Paul wants nothing to do with tact, and when the clergyman he hopes will be his father-in-law asks his religion, Paul happily owns himself an atheist.

You'd think the rest of the film, in which Paul's fiancee (Veronica Carlson) and the buxom tavern wench (Barbara Ewing) are both bitten and enthralled by the famous vampire, would cause him to reexamine his beliefs. But the plot proves to be more about the monsignor accepting Paul as his daughter's chosen.

Freddie Francis delivers the goods again as one of the better Hammer directors. I particularly like a rooftop set/matte painting combination he uses repeatedly throughout the film, making it the choice location for battles or even just the routine route for clandestine young lovers.

Dracula has Risen from the Grave is available on HBOMax, one of four Hammer films, the others including Hammer's first Dracula film, their first Frankenstein film, and the Hammer version of The Mummy. I'd say The Mummy is the best of the group with Frankenstein in second but, despite loving Hammer movies, I've never been fond of their first Dracula entry. It's a shame Warners doesn't have some of the better Hammer films on HBOMax, like Frankenstein Created Woman, Rasputin the Mad Monk, The Brides of Dracula, She, or The Vampire Lovers.

Getting One Thing Straight

Movies and television in the U.S. so often shoot things the same way that audiences are trained to expect certain things and can become peculiarly frustrated when their expectations aren't met, even if, some might say especially if, it's a superior product. Watching David Lynch's 1999 film, The Straight Story, again a couple nights ago I marvelled at the shots he created of Iowa and Wisconsin with cinematographer Freddie Francis.

It's the same kind of visual revelation as Fargo. One kind of forgets how consistently studios shoot southern California for Montana or Indiana or Minnesota that these images have an almost alien quality.

I guess in that sense it's appropriate the previous time Freddie Francis worked with David Lynch it was on Dune and, before that, on The Elephant Man. The Straight Story wasn't only his last film with Lynch but the last film of Francis' career. A magnificent note to go out on.

The true story of a man, Alvin (Richard Farnsworth), travelling across country on a tractor just to see his estranged brother (Harry Dean Stanton) is played with a perfectly understated note by Lynch and the actors. Long quiet moments of Alvin driving while Angelo Badalamenti's gentle score plays create this beautiful story through sensory experience.

Twitter Sonnet #1278

Computer beads effect a careful count.
Divided tables add to sev'ral games.
As pieces move the problems slowly mount.
To carve the bones is like to give them names.
A tractor took the hundred miles once.
Of broken belts the war would never tell.
For salt the tiger's tongue forever hunts.
Saliva falls but not for ev'ry bell.
Commended books discard the earthly pulp.
A distant gated drive was shortened quick.
Translated words retract in shrinking gulp.
A careful plan became a lousy trick.
The amber dream remained through inky night.
The slowest wheels approach a morning light.

The Old Machine in the New Production Line

A young man finds himself caught between the complacency of the old and the impersonal machinery of the new in 1960's Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. Albert Finney stars in this particularly good kitchen sink drama, the harsh realism in its locations paired with dark, expressionist cinematography by Freddie Francis.

Arthur (Finney) works in a machine factory, a beefy young man who constantly seems about to boil over with his squandered energy and passions. He lives in a dilapidated terraced house with his parents, his dad (Frank Pettitt), listlessly caught up in the television, is barely aware of his son's attempts to engage with him. Meanwhile, Arthur's sleeping with Brenda (Rachel Roberts), the wife of his elder coworker, Jack (Bryan Pringle), who blissfully suspects nothing.

Arthur and Brenda have even gotten comfortable in a sort of domestic pantomime where she cooks him breakfast before work at her home while Jack and the kids are away. Arthur and Brenda both seem genuinely happy with this arrangement and Arthur seems to get something of the validation and comfort of a traditional home life with her. Then Brenda gets pregnant by Arthur.

Around the same time, Arthur meets Doreen (Shirley Anne Field), their initial flirtation a wonderful piece of dialogue, seeming like both rough naturalism and cleverly stylised. He offers her a drink and a cigarette before abruptly asking her to meet for a movie on Wednesday.

ARTHUR: Well don't be late then.

DOREEN: I won't be. But if I am you'll just have to wait, won't you?

Brenda accuses Arthur of not knowing right from wrong but it's clear he does have a moral compass, one he adheres to in defiance of a world that seems to him unprincipled. He insists he wants to help Brenda with the child and when she says she wants an abortion he offers to pay for it. He brings her to meet with his aunt who apparently has a reputation for making pregnancies go away. It's a strange and fascinating scene where the three sit down to an awkward tea.

Arthur leaves to walk with his cousin, to prevent the other young man from learning Brenda is there, and the two of them come across a drunk old man whom they witness breaking a funeral parlour window with his mug. Arthur and his cousin join in with a crowd rebuking the old man but Arthur takes more offence when two women insist on taking the matter to the police. It's clear the cops form no part of legitimate justice in Arthur's eyes. When he sees one of the women gossiping about it later he shoots her from a window with an air rifle, apparently causing her no harm.

When she brings a cop to complain, not only Doreen and Arthur's cousin instinctively cooperate to protect him but his dad does, too, providing an alibi for his son without a second thought. But the scene ends rather amusingly with each party thinking they'd gotten something over on the other.

There's a sort of communal justice that depends a lot on point of view, something that works both for and against Arthur as the film goes on. Much as it must seem to Arthur, the exact border between what he's rebelling against and what he's embracing isn't exactly clear, an ambiguity that makes his discontent all the more credible. Like a lot of stories about young misfits, it ends with the impression that Arthur might be slipping into the conformity he feared, leaving us to wonder with him if there was ever something real outside his box that he was instinctively reaching for.