Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Barbara Shelley


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I found an excellent blog entry on Barbara Shelley, an actress whom for me was a primary inspiration and maybe my earliest introduction to this strange attraction for female vampires. The author of the Cinebeats blog does a fantastic job of writing about one of the best female vamps ever portrayed on film and captures my sentiments about her precisely. Visit Barbara here:

cinebeats.blogsome.com/2007/07/07/barbara-shelley

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Doesn't she just steal that film? Even if Peter Cushing had been around, I can't see him having eclipsed her (never mind a voiceless Christopher Lee). Barbara Shelley makes up beautifully for the disappointingly unseductive Lucy in the Hammer version of Dracula, coming across as homicidally affectionate in the way a proper vampire should. :)

I wonder if you might have seen the BBC version of Dracula. It's from 1977, so the acting is a bit stagy and the special effects charmingly crude, but I do think they make an all-round good job with the lady vamps, and there's some lovely footage in Highgate Cemetery for Lucy's demise. Actually, I think that scene easily surpasses the deplorably unsexy "Exorcist" version in the 1992 Coppola film (Why Holmwood - or anyone else - would be seduced by a white-faced zombie in a horrible kabuki dress continues to baffle me).

BTW - Thanks for having introduced me, via your site, to the Hammer vampire films. A gem of a discovery, if I do say, and now a great inspiration in my own work. :)

Anonymous said...

Lol! I think the fruitcake doll-like dress of 1992 Lucy was fantastic! A bit too much, yea, but better too much goodness than too little of it! She is one of my fave vamps. True, originally human Lucy was not a nympho, and the white make-up... hm, Stoker´s vampire Lucy had rosy complexion in 19th century vampire fashion. Still gorgeous. And yea, Barbara Shelley stole the Dracula, prince of darkness.

Anonymous said...

Sent erotic shivers through me the moment she walked towards Dianne 'you dont neeeed charles'. The massive annoyance is I soooo wanted her to seduce and transform Dianne into a vampire.