Thanks to a gajillion adaptations of Bram Stoker's seminal novel, Professor Van Helsing is almost as well-known as his undead adversary. Of all the portrayals of the good doctor, however, one towers above the rest. The great Peter Cushing gave us a Van Helsing who was an academic with the soul of a swashbuckler. Who could forget the mad dash across the table in Horror of Dracula, or the leap onto the burning windmill in Brides of Dracula? Even a lesser film like Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires features a 63-year-old Cushing hurtling himself backwards into a campfire! This Van Helsing ws the first "action scientist" I encountered and immediately became a lifelong hero of mine.
As a big fan of kung fu movies, I've always had a fondness for the aforementioned Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires . Yeah, the involvement of Dracula is nonsensical and contrived, and the fight choreography is pretty weak sauce. But I love it, undead warts and all.
In the days before home video, studios would often release LP tie-ins of classic or cult films. These, along with condensed Super 8 prints, were the only way for fans to enjoy their favorite movies in-between sporadic television airings. Warner Brothers released a record version of Golden Vampires with narration by Peter Cushing himself. The LP is a collector's item today; a recording was included as an extra on the Anchor Bay DVD of the film, but it, too, is long out of print. While the movie has been recently reissued by another company, the new disc does not feature any extras at all.
Today's treat is an MP3 file of the Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires album, featuring the music of James Bernard and narration by Peter Cushing. It was taken from my own copy of the AB disc, so there. You can either stream the file through the embedded player below, or figure out a clever way of downloading from the host site.
I own this magnificent poster. Suck it, universe!
0 comments:
Post a Comment