Movies - The Kiss of the Vampire

Home > Listing Index > Movies > The Kiss of the Vampire

	Movies - The Kiss of the Vampire

The Kiss of the Vampire is a 1962 British Hammer Horror film directed by Don Sharp and starring Edward de Souza, Jennifer Daniel, Noel Willman, Barry Warren,Jacquie Wallis, and Clifford Evans.

Plot synopsis

Gerald and Marianne Harcourt( Edward de Souza and Jennifer Daniel), are a honeymooning couple in 19th-century Bavaria who become caught up in a vampire cult led by Dr. Ravna ( Noel Willman) and his two children Carl and Sabena (Barry Warren and Jacquie Wallis).

Production

Originally intended to be Dracula III — after Dracula
and The Brides of Dracula
— it was another attempt by Hammer to make a Dracula sequel without Christopher Lee. The final script, by Anthony Hinds makes no reference to Dracula, and expands further on the directions taken in Brides by portraying vampirism as a social disease afflicting those who become decadent. The film went into production on 7 September, 1962 at Bray Studios.

Trivia

This film played once again with the rules of vampirism by allowing the vampiric Ravna family to move about during the daylight hours albeit in a limited fashion.

This is the only known feature film appearance of Jacquie Wallis who portrays the very significant role of Sabena Ravna.

Alternate version

Retitled "Kiss Of Evil" for American TV, Universal trimmed the original film for its initial television showing so much that they shot more footage with additional characters that didn't appear at all in the original release, creating a whole new subplot. They edited out every scene with blood in it (e.g. the pre-credits scene in which blood gushes from the coffin of Zimmer's daughter after he plunges a shovel into it (even her scream is cut from that scene), or, when Harcourt frees his hands after being clawed by Tanya, the TV version has him escape by running across the room untouched by the vampires, who just watch him get away. As originally filmed, Harcourt, after freeing his hands, immediately smears the blood on his chest into a cross-shaped pattern). A couple of the cuts result in scenes that don't make sense any more: in the cut-for-TV version, we never do find out what Marianne sees behind the curtain, a sight which makes her scream.

The abbreviated running time was made up for by the addition of scenes of a family (middle-aged husband and wife; teenage daughter) who argue about the influence of the vampiric Ravna clan, but never interact with anybody else in the movie. The daughter throws over her boyfriend in favor of Carl Ravna ( unseen in these scenes)who has given her a music box which plays the same hypnotic tune that he plays on the piano elsewhere in the movie. Carl Esmond, Sheila Welles and Virginia Gregg ( who gained fame by voicing Mother in three of the Psycho films) appear in the TV version.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for The Kiss of the Vampire ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article The Kiss of the Vampire; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay