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| Title: COUNTESS DRACULA Year: 1971 Rating: ***1/2 |
Hammer had a new neck-sucker in Ingrid Pitt after her tour-de-force performance in THE VAMPIRE LOVERS, and the title COUNTESS DRACULA refers not to her character or Dracula but a real life countess she's based on...
Yet the plot of a haggard rich woman needing blood from virgins to make her young and beautiful... but only for relatively small periods of time as she steals love with an otherwise oblivious handsome man, hiding away after turning even older and uglier each time... borrows straight from the decade-earlier b-movie THE LEECH WOMAN...
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Ingrid Pitt and Sandor Elès in COUNTESS DRACULA with Maurice Denham
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The usual Hammer low-budget is actually more apparent outdoors instead of within the gothic castle replete with neat wall torches and antique paintings within large dining or meeting rooms, where scenes of exposition dialogue and sneaky plotting have the feel of a TV-movie, which COUNTESS seems like an exploitation-cinema version of...
The best scenes are each time a young beautiful woman is chosen for sacrifice: the Countess eventually learning that only virgins work after killing voluptuous whore Andria Lawrence (like when THE LEECH WOMAN realized only men work after killing Gloria Talbott)... although there's not enough of the stalking hunt and violent kill to make this horror movie more tense and scarier, while the aspect of turning old to young to old gets repetitive...
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| Ingrid Pitt and Nigel Green in COUNTESS DRACULA |
Featuring the token handsome suitor in Sandor Elès but the scene-stealer also stole ZULU in tragic character-actor Nigel Green, setting up each necessary murder for Pitt's Countess Elizabeth who, while in her youthful spell, pretends to be her visiting daughter...
Who's kidnapped/hidden for the ruse to work, and, played by British super-beauty Lesley-Anne Down, she's basically underused while the cunning relationship between Green and Pitt... the latter whose acting is better without the fake-looking hag makeup in her naturally seductive beauty that made HAMMER LOVERS shine... is what this novelty take on the legendary DRACULA is all about.
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| Ingrid Pitt and Sandor Elès in COUNTESS DRACULA |
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| Ingrid Pitt in COUNTESS DRACULA |
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| Ingrid Pitt in COUNTESS DRACULA |
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| Susan Brodrick in COUNTESS DRACULA |
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| Ingrid Pitt in COUNTESS DRACULA |
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| Lesley-Anne Down in COUNTESS DRACULA |
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Andria Lawrence (Andrea Lawrence) in COUNTESS DRACULA
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| Ingrid Pitt in COUNTESS DRACULA |
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| Ingrid Pitt in COUNTESS DRACULA |
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| Ingrid Pitt in COUNTESS DRACULA |
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| Andria Lawrence (Andrea Lawrence) in COUNTESS DRACULA |
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| Lesley-Anne Down in COUNTESS DRACULA |
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| Lesley-Anne Down in COUNTESS DRACULA |
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| Nike Arrighi in COUNTESS DRACULA |
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| Ingrid PItt in COUNTESS DRACULA |
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| Nike Arrighi in COUNTESS DRACULA |
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| Nigel Green in COUNTESS DRACULA |
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