CAST:
Peter Cushing (Professor Lawrence Van
Helsing), Robin Stewart (Leyland Van Helsing), David Chiang (Hsi Ching),
Julie Ege (Vanessa Buren), Shih Szu (Mei Kwei), Chan Shen (Kah), John
Forbes-Robertson (Count Dracula)
PRODUCTION:
Director – Roy Ward Baker, Screenplay – Don
Houghton, Producers – Don Houghton & Vee King Shaw, Photography –
Roy Ford & John Wilcox, Music – James Bernard, Music Supervisor –
Philip Martell, Special Effects – Les Bowie, Makeup – Wu Hsu Ching, Art
Direction – Johnson Tsau. Production Company – Hammer/Sir Run Run Shaw.
It’s no secret that Hammer Film Productions was in
deep trouble in the 1970s. Having established themselves as the
premiere fright factory in the world in the 1950s, they managed to crank
out a steady stream of box office hits - along with a few flops -
throughout the 1960s. But by the 70s, cracks were appearing in the
foundation. Audiences were growing tired of the usual run of
Frankenstein and Dracula sequels, for one thing, and for another, the
general attitude towards horror as a genre was beginning to change.
Major studios began dipping their toe into the genre, while independents
began to explore the possibility of more visceral thrills. Hammer’s
product, though cutting edge in the 1950s, suddenly seemed quaint, even
conservative. Sir James Carreras apparently saw the writing on the
wall, and in 1971 he sold the company to his son, Michael. Long viewed
as something of a whipping boy by Hammerphiles, Carreras did his
damndest
to bring Hammer up to date - but some of his ideas were admittedly
wrong headed, while others failed to come off, due to budgetary
constraints. One of his more outlandish concepts came when he struck a
deal with Hong Kong-based producer Run Run Shaw, head of Shaw Brothers
Productions. In theory, it seemed an ideal match - Hammer horror
married to Hong Kong kung fu. Unfortunately, it would prove a hard sell
- and the marriage would end almost as quickly as it began.
The screenplay by Don Houghton attempts to meld
the two disparate strains, but it fails to reconcile them, thus making
for an uneasy blend of Eastern and Western mythology. Nowhere is this
more evident than in the attempt to shoehorn Dracula into the
proceedings. By this stage in the game, Christopher Lee had had his
fill of the character, however, and he remained steadfast that The
Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973) would be his last crack at the character
(and he arguably kept his word, though the French farce Dracula and
Son, 1976, saw him offering a variation on the theme). Hammer turned
instead to character actor John Forbes-Robertson, inspired, no doubt, by
his silent turn as a sinister vampire figure in The Vampire Lovers
(1970). Forbes-Robertson may have seemed a credible alternative to
Hammer’s biggest star, but he makes for a poor replacement. Matters
aren’t helped by the overdone makeup, which manages to make the King of
the
Vampires look a bit like a drag queen, or by the fact that the actor is
dubbed throughout by another performer; Forbes Robertson wasn’t even
notified of the latter, and was reportedly very unhappy when he
discovered this on his own. On the upside, Dracula only factors in to
the opening and closing scenes of the film - on the downside, the scenes
in question feel grafted on, which they more than likely were in a bid
to appeal to Warner Brothers. Having Dracula on board was one thing -
but having him portrayed by somebody other than Christopher Lee didn’t
help to make it more of a commercial proposition.
Fortunately, Hammer had no trouble enticing Peter
Cushing back into the fold, dutifully reprising his role as vampire
hunter extraordinaire, Professor Van Helsing. Cushing was older and
frailer here than he was when he first portrayed the character in
Dracula (1958) and The Brides of Dracula (1960), but his energy and
commitment remained undiminished. Cushing once again demonstrates why
he was such a tremendous asset to films such as this, as his cultured
delivery helps to make even the most preposterous dialogue sound somehow
intelligent. Given the addition of kung fu to the franchise, however,
it is something of a relief to see that Van Helsing wasn’t expected to
get in on the action himself!
Hammer enlisted the veteran Roy Ward Baker to
direct, and the director would later recall the experience as something
of a disaster. Baker, who had helmed several big budget Hollywood
productions (including the Marilyn Monroe noir Don’t Bother to Knock,
1952) before directing what many deem to be the best screen version of
the Titanic tragedy (A Night to Remember, 1953), had become accustomed
to the facilities inherent in American and British filmmaking. Thus,
upon arriving in Hong Kong, to find a primitive studio without the
benefit of sound proofing (like Italian productions, Chinese films were
shot without direct sound), and a script that needed plenty of work, he
was in the unenviable position of trying to salvage a project that had
“disaster” written all over it.
The proverbial straw that broke the
camel’s back arose when producer Shaw informed Baker that he was
entrusting the fight scenes to one of their in-house action
specialists. Baker blew his top and insisted that if he was directing
the picture, he was directing the whole thing. A standoff ensued, but
Baker ultimately had his way. The fight scenes were choreographed by
Liu Chia-Liang (who would later win acclaim working with Jackie Chan on
the fight scenes of The Legend of the Drunken Master, 1994), but the
staging and coverage was orchestrated by Baker. The director would
later claim that he did a better job than the usual “specialist” because
he varied the coverage; the point is debatable, but he still delivers a
few rousing action scenes along the way. The experience of making the
film, encumbered with so many problems (to say nothing of the obvious
language barrier with a largely Chinese crew), would linger with Baker;
he would direct only one more theatrical feature (the disastrous
non-Amicus horror anthology The Monster Club, 1980, with Vincent Price),
though he would continue to dabble in episodic
television, even helming the made for TV Cushing-Sherlock Holmes
feature The Masks of Death (1984). He died in 2010, at the age of 93.
Baker is to be commended for making something
watchable out of this material. The script is no great shakes, and
apart from Cushing, most of the performances are stilted. Baker
approaches the film with stylistic gusto, however, approaching the
horror sequences with some of the stylistic bravado of Italian maestro
Mario Bava. The sequences of the titular vampires and their zombie
slaves shuffling through barren landscapes have a peculiar poetry, and
if the impact is let down by some uncommonly bad special effects work by
Les Bowie, there’s still a rousing score by James Bernard to keep
things moving. Bernard would come back to Hammer to do a couple of
scores for their TV series, The Hammer House of Horror, but Legend of
the 7 Golden Vampires would remain his final feature score for the
studio.
If Carreras really believed that tapping into the
kung fu market would help to revive Hammer’s standing, he was bitterly
disappointed. Warner Bros. picked the film up for distribution in the
UK, where it was distributed more or less uncut (some minor gore was
trimmed at the insistence of the BBFC); it did less than stellar
business, however, and reviews were predictably miserable. In the US,
it would suffer the same fate as The Satanic Rites of Dracula - it would
sit on the shelf for years, before being drastically cut, retitled (as
The Seven Brothers Meet Dracula), and trotted out by Dynamite
Entertainment, who also failed to elicit much in the way of audience
interest.
Ultimately, one doesn’t want to make inflated
claims for The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires. It’s a silly film in
many respects, and it’s certainly burdened with more than its faire
share of flaws, but fans of Hammer horror, or of Cushing in particular,
should enjoy it for offering a variation on the formula. Truly, one of
the best things one can say about it is in the nature of a side note -
while a comic remake (with Tim Allen!) was threatened for several years,
it eventually fell through. Be grateful for small miracles, indeed!
