On the
night Christopher Lee passed away at the age of 93, he had earlier watched
Lord of the Rings with his son-in-law and had explained how it was done as
the film progressed. A lover of film and Tolkien to the very end. This documentary
from Jon Spira covers a lot of territory in Lee's life - and does so in a
unique way. This is oddly the third documentary that I have seen recently
in which a person narrates the film imitating the voice and telling the story
from the perspective of the subject. One on Roger Moore and one on Alfred
Hitchcock. I am not sure this device has worked in any of the three films.
This also uses a marionette that resembles Lee to narrate as well as lots
of animation. This takes it out of the realm of your typical standard no-fault
biography but at the same time is a bit distracting. I think most of us come
to documentaries like this for as much information as you can feed us, in
the fastest way possible with a few reputable talking heads and lots of clips.
This has most of that.
In a news interview after he was awarded
the British Knighthood, the reporter refers to him as "still the King of
Horror" and he is quite put out. I haven't made a horror film in 35 years.
Please don't call me that. True that by this time he had been Saruman in
Lord of the Rings and Count Dooku in Star Wars plus easily over 150 films
that were not horror - but to a large section of his legion of fans, he was
still the King of Horror along with Vincent Price and his good friend Peter
Cushing. They made him famous. He came from a family with quite the titled
heritage, but his offshoot was basically middle-class with both a father
and stepfather having deserted the family. He went into the military during
WW2 and because of his fluency in German, French and Italian he was rumored
to have been a spy or involved in other top-secret missions - but he would
never talk about it.
After the war on the advice of a relative,
he tried his hand at acting. Connections got him into the Rank Charm School
which a number of famous actors had passed through. His height at 6 feet
five inches played against him and for some eight years he appeared in small
films with small roles. I have seen a few and he is fine. Then Hammer was
going off in a new direction after years of comedies and mysteries - and
they needed a tall man to play the Monster. He got the role and then Dracula,
the Mummy and suddenly he was a horror icon, something he could never shake.
Of course, it didn't help that at the same time as he was doing Hammer, he
began doing horror films over in Europe - he loved working with Bava and
Jess Franco - and of course the series of Fu Manchu films. He worked with
Cushing on a number of horror films for Hammer and Amicus - but he says his
favorite horror film was The Wicker Man in 1973.
He is also remembered as one of Bond's villains.
It wasn't really till he moved to America at the end of the 1970s that he
shook the horror label but in truth most of the films over that period are
quite obscure. One film that he brings up as some of his finest work is Jinnah
in 1998. I have this and almost watched it a few weeks ago but I was put
off by him playing the founder of Pakistan. He also found time between his
nearly 300 credits to put out two heavy metal music albums. From the bits
they played, I won't be rushing to buy it. A remarkable career, known to
every generation. This is an adoring look at him - which is fine by me. I
have no need these days to hear about the negative details about the artists
I admire. There is enough of that in the world.
