The Brides of Dracula

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The Brides of Dracula
The Brides of Dracula VHS cover
Directed by	Terence Fisher
Produced by	Anthony Hinds
Written by	Peter Bryan Edward Percy Jimmy Sangster Anthony Hinds (uncredited)
Starring	Peter Cushing Martita Hunt Yvonne Monlar David Peel
Music by	Malcolm Williamson
Cinematography	Jack Asher
Editing by	Alfred Cox
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	July 7, 1960 (UK)
Running time	85 min.
Country	UK
Language	English
Preceded by	Dracula (1958 film)
Followed by	Dracula: Prince of Darkness
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

For the characters, see Brides of Dracula.

The Brides of Dracula is a 1960 British Hammer Horror film directed by Terence Fisher. It stars Peter Cushing as Van Helsing; Yvonne Monlaur as Marianne Danielle; Andree Melly as her roommate, Gina; Marie Devereux; David Peel as a disciple of Count Dracula, Baron Meinster; and Martita Hunt as his indulgent mother. It is a sequel of sorts to Hammer's original Dracula (US: Horror of Dracula) (1958), although Christopher Lee did not return to the title role until Dracula: Prince of Darkness in 1965.

Shooting began for The Brides of Dracula on 16 January 1960 at Bray Studios.^[1]

Contents 1 Plot synopsis 2 Trivia 3 Cast 4 Credits 5 Notes and references 6 External links

[edit] Plot synopsis

Marianne Danielle, a young schoolteacher en route to take up a position in Transylvania, is abandoned in a village by her coach driver. At the local inn, she ignores the warnings of the locals and accepts the offer of Baroness Meinster to spend the night at her castle.

At the castle, she sees the Baroness's handsome son, whom she is told is insane and kept confined (his leg is chained). When she sneaks to meet him, he says his mother usurped his rightful lands and pleads for her to help. She agrees, and steals the key to his chain from the Baroness' bedroom. Upon discovery of this, the Baroness is horrified. Yet when her son appears, she obeys him and goes into the next room. Later, the servant Greta (who has taken care of the Baron since he was a baby) goes into hysterics. She forces Marianne to look at the Baroness' body, and the puncture marks in her throat. Marianne flees into the night.

She is found, exhausted, by Dr. Van Helsing. She doesn't remember all that has happened, nor is she familiar when asked with the words "undead" or "vampirism." He escorts her to the school where she's to be employed.

When Van Helsing reaches the village inn, he finds there is a funeral in progress. A young girl has been found dead in the woods with wounds upon her throat. He contacts Father Stepnik, who turns out to have asked the expert on vampirism to come here. Father Stepnik has suspicions about the castle and the Baroness. That night, Baron Meinster's first victim rises from her grave, aided by Greta, as witnessed by Van Helsing and the priest. Van Helsing goes to the castle and discovers the Baroness has now risen as a vampire, full of self-loathing and guilt. After sunrise the next morning, he dispatches her with a wooden stake.

The Baron, meanwhile, pays a visit on Marianne and asks her to marry him. She accepts, much to the good-natured envy of her roommate Gina. Once Gina is alone, however, Baron Meinster comes to her and bites her. When Van Helsing comes for a visit the next day, he finds the school in an small uproar over Gina's death. Van Helsing gives strict instructions about the body--to be kept away from the school and with people watching it until he returns. As it happens, Marianne is alone with the coffin at sunset. The locks on the coffin fall off, and Gina rises. She talks soothingly to a terrified Marianne, asking forgivenss for "Letting him love me," and asking to kiss her. She says they can all be together. He is at the old mill now.

But then Van Helsing enters, with a cross, just in time. Marianne doesn't want to believe the Baron is a vampire, but she does tell Van Helsing what he needs to know. The vampire hunter goes to the old mill and is confronted by both of Meinster's "Brides" as well as Greta--who, as a human, isn't affected by the cross. Greta is killed in a fall, but the cross is now out of Van Helsing's reach when the Baron arrives. In the fight that follows, the Baron bites Van Helsing and leaves him.

When Van Helsing wakes, he realizes what has happened. He heats a metal tool in a brazier until it is red-hot, then cauterizes his throat wound and pours Holy Water on it to purify it; the wounds immediately disappear.

Baron Meinster, meanwhile, goes to Marianne and forces her to come with him to the old mill. He intends to bite and turn her into a vampire in front of Van Helsing. Van Helsing throws Holy Water into the Baron's face, which sears like acid. Meinster kicks over the brazier of hot coals, starting a fire. While the Baron flees outside, Van Helsing takes Marianne up into the mill, then out via the huge sails, which he moves to form the shadow a gigantic cross. The shadows falls on Baron Meinster, who is killed by it. Presumably, Meinster's vampire brides die in the fire.

[edit] Trivia

• Two of the original working titles for this supposed sequel to 1958's "Horror Of Dracula" were "Dracula 2" and "Disciple Of Dracula".
• The film's première showing was at the Odeon, Marble Arch on 6 July 1960.
• This is the only movie in the Hammer Horror series where the name of the original Van Helsing is mentioned — his business card and the initials on his medical bag identifies him as J. Van Helsing, suggesting that he is not Stoker's Abraham Van Helsing.
• The ending was to have originally had the vampires destroyed by a swarm of bats. This ending was rejected by Peter Cushing as being too magical for the Van Helsing character. The concept of this ending was used three years later for the climax of Hammer's Kiss of the Vampire.
• A paperback novelization of the film by Dean Owen was published by Monarch Books in 1960, and features an entire subplot about a character named Latour, who summons the mystical bats to provide the ending not used in the film.
• Van Helsing mentions Dracula only once in a brief line of dialogue.
• David Peel, who pays the youthful Baron Meinster, was in his forties when the movie was filmed. He retired from acting following this film and became a real estate agent and antiques dealer. He died in 1982.
• "My own personal involvement in a film like Brides was always 100 percent, not because I felt it to be my duty but because I felt very strongly that the pictures were mine. No doubt Terry [Fisher] thought they were his and Jimmy Sangster thought they belonged to him. And Peter C knew they were his." — Producer Anthony Hinds (Little Shoppe of Horrors #14, 1999)

[edit] Cast

• Peter Cushing (Doctor Van Helsing)
• Freda Jackson (Greta)
• Martita Hunt (Baroness Meinster)
• Yvonne Monlaur (Marianne)
• Miles Malleson (Dr. Tobler)
• David Peel (Baron Meinster)
• Mona Washbourne (Frau Lang)
• Henry Oscar (Herr Lang)
• Victor Brooks (Hans)
• Michael Ripper (Coachman)
• Andree Melly (Gina)
• Fred Johnson (Cure)
• Norman Pierce (Landlord)
• Vera Cook (Landlord's wife)
• Marie Devereux (Village girl)
• Michael Mulcaster (uncredited) (Latour)
• Henry Scott (uncredited) (Severin)

[edit] Credits

• Directed by Terence Fisher
• Screenplay by Jimmy Sangster, Peter Bryan, and Edward Percy
• Produced by Anthony Hinds
• Associate producer: Anthony Nelson Keys
• Executive producer: Michael Carreras
• Music by Malcolm Williamson
• Musical supervisor: John Hollingsworth
• Director of photography: Jack Asher, B.S.C.
• Camera Operator: Len Harris
• Production design by Bernard Robinson
• Art direction by Don Mingaye
• Supervising editor: James Needs
• Edited by Alfred Cox
• Make-up by Roy Ashton
• Special effects by Sydney Pearson

[edit] Notes and references

1. ^ *Rigby, Jonathan, (2000). English Gothic: A Century of Horror Cinema. Reynolds & Hearn Ltd. ISBN 1-903111-01-3. 

[edit] External links

• The Brides of Dracula at the Internet Movie Database
• The Brides of Dracula at All Movie Guide
• The Brides of Dracula at Rotten Tomatoes
• Online Review