Trivia for
Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966)

photos

board

trailer

details

• Christopher Lee found the lines given to this character so awful that he chose to play it silent.
  
  
• Filmed back-to-back with Rasputin: The Mad Monk (1966), using many of the same cast members and sets.
  
  
• According to the DVD commentary by Barbara Shelley and Susan Farmer, all of Barbara Shelley's screams were dubbed over by Susan Farmer.
  
  

• Originally shown (in London) in a double billing with The Plaque of the Zombies (1966).
  
  
• In the scene where Dracula finally wakes up (his "resurrection" in his coffin), to the crash of thunder and a flash of lightning, he originally took, as probably anyone would, a full FOUR frames (one sixth of a second) to completely open his eyes. In the final cutting stages, an assistant editor had the idea of removing those four frames -- effectively a "jump cut" -- to have Dracula's eyes open in an even more shocking ONE frame. However, the editor, Chris Barnes, had already finalised the edit for that reel -- so the clever cut was never incorporated!
  
  
• In the scene where Dracula is being "resurrected" from a coffin into which his ashes have been spread, from blood dripping down from a poor victim (provided by Klove) Dracula is made to "manifest himself" over a period of about a minute. This was achieved by overlapping "dissolves" of a series of twelve locked-down camera shots, involving first the ashes, then a skeleton, then some body-fat on the skeleton, etc., along with swirling mist, till we finally perceive the full form of Dracula. He doesn't appear fully dressed as is usually the case - the shot moves to outside the coffin and a bare arm reaches out. The vampire's clothes were seen in earlier scenes awaiting his return.
  
  

Related Links