GAME - In pace requiescat!

[Lamoreux]

I'd like to suggest a new GAME; for those of you with a dark streak running through you similar to mine. Not only has Christopher Lee appeared in more films than any other performer; he has met his untimely demise, on screen, more times than any other actor.
The game? Name a film in which Mr. Lee's character shuffled off his mortal coil and the mode of demise. One death per post.
Mr. Lee can begin the game himself, with a quote from his Saturday Night Live monologue:

"I drowned in AIRPORT '77"

[elizabeth vanharlingen]

"The Return of the Musketeers"

Blown to bits on a boat.

Vandevere

[Lamoreux]

DRACULA (aka HORROR OF DRACULA)

Held in check by Van Helsing's make-shift cross and disintegrated by the purifying rays of the sun.

Doug

[saruman12]

Gremlins 2
eletrified by "the electronic gremlin"
( sounds silly, but can not think of another way to say it)

[LordArthur75062]

Getting tangled in the sharp Hawthorn bushes at the end of Count Dracula and His Vampire Brides.According to Fan Generated Rumours,the plants were originally supposed to behave as if they were grasping and tearing at the Count,leaving smoking gashes in the King Vampire's skin.Of course nowadays,we could pull something like that off with CGI,but it probably wouldn't look or feel as Hammer as it would if Les Bowie had followed through with the concept.

[Lamoreux]

Hadn't heard those rumors, but I agree with you. Les Bowie was one of my heroes.

SCARS OF DRACULA
Struck by a bolt of lightening and falls burning from the castle tower. (Loved it!)

Doug

[LordArthur75062]

When it came to either disintegrating or revivifying a vampire,Les Bowie was the man to see.I read an interview he gave to Fangoria magazine some years before his death,and he himself admitted that they liked to keep the joes at home in the dark as to the exact process and materials that were used to effect these particular illusions.Of course,anatomical skeletons were used at some point,as were generous portions of a clay powder called Fuller's earth,which became the Count's dehydrated remains.These items and a closely guarded ranking of process photography gave us the desired visuals,although as the Dracula film series progressed,the effects varied somewhat from film to film.

[LordArthur75062]

Let's face it ,mates---Christopher Lee is the Best Dracula that the screen has yet seen.His interpretation of the character is bang-on-target,and personifies the King Vampire.I do agree with Mr. Lee in that he has only portrayed the character "as written",only once.I tend to look at his other portrayals of Dracula as alternate universe stories,where events similar to,but not duplicating Stoker's book,occur.This in no way lessens the story,nor in my opinion his portayals of the Lord of the Undead.It simply makes them different.I do appreciate that to honor an authors work,you must be as uncompromising as the author himself would certainly be,and I also agree that some of the offerings that Mr. Lee did in harness as the Count were less than critically satisfying,but his presence,and that of co-star Peter Cushing often made what could have been totally abyssmal films well worth sitting through again and again.Why,you ask?Because we the Fans,the viewing public, have taken them into our hearts:Once there,no escape is possible!

[LordArthur75062]

Second on my List of Things To Do to Drac:Impale him on a Giant Golden Altar Cross! As Bruce Campbell said,"Ohh,that's GOTTA hurt!"I am not familiar with exactly how CL and the effects crew on DHRFTG achieved this visual,but i'm willing to bet there are some blooper stories in back of this one.Probably some sort of harness rig with the different bits of the cruciform attached in different places,would be my guess.Seeing the King Vampire skewered like a bug on a pin,and by the Symbol he fears most was visual poetry.No accident then that this film got Hammer the Queen's Award for Industry.

[Lamoreux]

We've yet to mention the wonderful balancing act Christopher Lee put on trying to stay atop the shattered ice before he drown beneath running water in DRACULA, PRINCE OF DARKNESS.

Doug