The Kiss of the Vampire *** (1963, Clifford Evans, Noel Willman, Edward de Souza, Jennifer Daniel) – Classic Movie Review 2900

Director Don Sharp’s sinister 1963 movie The Kiss of the Vampire is a thoughtful and entertaining Dracula-style Hammer horror, with scary sequences and a well-judged good old-fashioned battle between good and evil.

Noel Willman, a character actor who specialised in chilly villains, grabs his chance to star as the mysterious, vampirical Dr Ravna who ensnares British newly-weds like Marianne and Gerald Harcourt (Jennifer Daniel, Edward de Souza) holidaying by car in Bavaria at the turn of the last century.

In tried and true fashion, the couple’s car breaks down, they have to spend a few days in a remote village and soon they are invited to Dr Ravna’s castle. It is not surprise when Ravna is revealed to be the leader of a vampire cult, entranced by the lovely Marianne.

Clifford Evans plays Ravna’s nemesis, the good Professor Zimmer, though he perhaps is not that clever since when he says he is going to draw a five-pointed Salomon Pentagram, he draws an eight-pointed star.

The Kiss of the Vampire is pretty scary for its day, capably enough acted, especially by Willman and Evans, giving stalwart performances (though Hammer regulars star Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing are much missed). And it is enhanced with good-looking, imaginative cinematography in Eastmancolor by Alan Hume.

Perhaps it is best to avoid the film if you have bat-phobia, though no one really needs to worry too much as the rubber bats used in the movie were bought from a local branch of Woolworth’s.

Producer Anthony Hinds wrote the screenplay as ‘John Elder’.

Also in the cast are Isobel Black, Peter Madden, Barry Warren, Vera Cook, Margaret Read, Elisabeth Valentine, Brian Oulton, Noel Howlett, Jacquie Wallis, John Harvey and Olga Dickie.

The film, released as a double bill with Paranoiac (1963), is also known as Kiss of Evil in its truncated TV version.

The car used in the film is a De Dion Bouton model Q built in 1903 and loaned to Hammer Films by the National Motor Museum. It is supposedly new at the time the film is set, but it has an AA badge on the front, in use from 1911 to 1924.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2900

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