Free Vampires by Charles Butler Page B

in the glass frame that is in a different position every time the camera picks it out. Klove falls in love at first sight of the picture and pockets the artifact as his own when Paul is murdered by Dracula.
    Paul Carlson is played by Christopher Matthews, a philanderer who seems to be killed because he over indulges his excesses. All the girls in the film fall for his charm, but it was obviously lost on the studios as this remains his only big screen credit. Michael Ripper holds the villagers together while grieving over the loss of his wife at the hands of the Count’s marauding bats. The other Hammer Michael, Michael Gwynn, is the priest and seems to spend his days sat in the corner of the inn mixing his Holy waters until someone asks for his services, possibly remembering the great days of Hammer and, particularly, his role in the marvelous The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958) as the creature.
    The highpoints of the film are the very graphic treatments that Dracula inflicts on his servants. When Tania intends to bite Paul, Dracula unexpectedly appears and stabs her numerous times with a dagger and then has Klove dismember her corpse with an axe before feeding it to the stove. Later, as Klove refuses to remove the cross from Sarah’s throat and allows her to escape, the Count brands his back with a burning hot sword for his treachery. Perhaps this is where the scars of the title got their name?
    Christopher Lee walks through the film as if he is totally numb. His distaste shows and he seems barely preoccupied although he does get the chance to scale his castle wall like a lizard. Roy Ward Baker admitted that he had to fight to have the set built for this and was proud of the achievement, but not the eventual film. Roy Ward Baker would go on to direct Ingrid Pitt in Hammer’s film version of Carmilla. The Vampire Lovers (1971) and their final Dracula movie, The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires (1974).
    Dennis Waterman and Jenny Hanley are competent in their roles and are only two of Hammer’s leads of the seventies to continue in successful careers. Miss Hanley – daughter of actors, Jimmy Hanley and Dinah Sheridan - would go on to head the children’s magazine program Magpie (1974 – 1980). One point that always frustrates is the fact that the beautiful Jenny Hanley is barely mentioned when one speaks of Hammer Glamour. Usually she is relegated to a small square photograph with three or four lines, and yet in this movie, she has more to do and more screen time than most of Hammer’s scream queens. Dennis Waterman is a household name in the UK for his roles in television such as The Sweeney (1975-1978), Minder (1979-1989) and New Tricks (2003-present). He would go on to star as a victim in the British cult movie, Fright (1971) alongside his long-standing Minder co-star George Cole. His daughter to second wife actress Patricia Maynard, Hannah Waterman, is also an actress.
    Scars of Dracula and Horror of Frankenstein mark an ignominious end for Hammer’s regular franchises. It has the look of being the most hastily compiled of all the films in the series that goes on to recycle incidents from many of their better efforts. It also suggests that the company did not take much notice of the successes that were happening at the world wide box office. Television had begun screening Hammer’s original stories that showed more creativity and imagination than was displayed here, although I have talked to some fans who refer to this film as ‘their guilty pleasure’. For myself I found that the delirious inclusion of comedy relief policemen and Benny Hill regular Bob Todd as the Burgomeister, had me mentally recasting the whole film. Perhaps we could have included Jenny Lee Wright as a buxom servant girl and Henry McGee as a stuttering, but pompous, by-the-book Van Helsing?  Only Christopher Lee and Patrick Troughton would continue successful careers in major motion pictures.
    Patrick Troughton had just finished his run as