Tag: The Wicker Man

Well, as you undoubtedly know by now, the great Christopher Lee died on June 7, at the age of 93. This week on “Picture Perfect” – after making allowances for the 40th anniversary of “Jaws” and the observance of Father’s Day – we finally get around to honoring him, with music from four of his well-over-200 features.

Lee, of course, is best remembered for his work in a number of lurid horror classics produced by Hammer Films. Of these, his portrayal of Count Dracula is justifiably celebrated. “Taste the Blood of Dracula” (1970) may not have been the strongest installment in the series, since it barely had any reason to be a vampire movie (the Count avenges one of his servants who dies at at the hands of thrill-seeking gentlemen); but it could be argued that it had the strongest music, by Hammer house composer James Bernard.

Though Lee could never truly be said to have gone out of fashion, he experienced a remarkable late-career resurgence, becoming part of Tim Burton’s repertory company, giving a lovely turn as a bookseller in Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo,” and playing Count Dooku in the otherwise execrable “Star Wars” prequels – which almost succeed in making Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” movies look good by comparison. Lee plays the power-hungry Saruman the White, who raises Orcs from muck and makes Gandalf spin on his ear like Curly Howard. Peter Jackson being Peter Jackson, he even managed to work Saruman into his heavily-padded screen adaptations of “The Hobbit.” We’ll be listening to music from the second “Rings” film, “The Two Towers” (2002) in which Saruman has to deal with irascible walking trees roused by his environmental crimes.

“The Wicker Man” (1973) has to be one of the bleakest movies ever made, with an absolutely unforgettable ending. Lee plays one of his most disturbing roles as Lord Summerisle, who cheerily presides over legions of antlered mummers in his squash-colored turtleneck and blazer, while Britt Ekland haunts police officer Edward Woodward’s fever dreams. Paul Giovanni wrote the whacked out, folk-inflected score.

My favorite Lee role has to be that of the aristocratic occultist, the Duc de Richelieu, who combats the forces of darkness in “The Devil Rides Out” (1968). Lee takes it all very seriously – knit-browed, goateed and stentorian – even as he confronts the Goat of Mendes (“The devil himself!”). The villain, a black magician by the name of Mocata, is played by Charles Gray of James Bond and “Rocky Horror” fame. Richard Matheson’s screenplay is far superior to the Dennis Wheatley’s novel – or maybe Lee just makes it seem so. Again, the music is by James Bernard.

I hope you’ll join me, as we remember Christopher Lee, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, this Friday evening at 6 ET, with a repeat Saturday morning at 6; or that you’ll listen to it later as a webcast, at http://www.wwfm.org.

PLEASE NOTE: A tribute to the late James Horner will follow, on July 3 and 4.