Read Vampires for Free Online Page B

definitive performance of Nigel Kneale’s hero in Quatermass and the Pit (1967) alongside Barbara Shelley. He also played Julian Fuchs in Blood From the Mummy’s Tomb (1971). He filled the part when Peter Cushing left the production after one days filming when his wife, Helen, was diagnosed with emphysema. Blood was a cursed production it seemed, as director Seth Holt also died and Michael Carreras stepped in to complete it. Keir had also originated the role of Thomas Cromwell in the Robert Bolt play, A Man For All seasons (1960).
    Stealing Dracula, Prince of Darkness as the gruff, rifle toting Father Sandor, he made a strong substitute for Van Helsing and I wished that he would have had a more intimate set to with the Count in the final scene. Sandor is a Franciscan Monk who shocks his flock with his straight talk and bluff manner. When Diana is bitten by the Count on the wrist, Sandor immediately puts a flame to the wound and holds it there for long lingering moments until he is sure that the poison has been cauterized. He doesn’t suffer fools gladly and berates the superstitious priest who insists on a bonfire every time a young girl dies without checking the corpse for the obvious telltale marks. But he does have an over generous side to his persona, as he lets crazy Ludwig (Thorley Walters) happily walk around the monastery letting all kinds of undesirables in through the windows. He explains to Charles, and the audience, the rudiments of destroying the vampire, adding the long forgotten running water remedy in which the fiend will drown. But he never says that it will be easy:
    “To skin a cat, first, catch it!”
    He shows quick presence of mind when Helen is cornered in the monastery and has Charles watch as he and several monks hold down his sister-in-law and ram a length of wood into her chest to release her soul. When Klove is trapped on the road by the two men, again he doesn’t stop to think twice about shooting the satanic butler. His further skill with the rifle is shown as he takes pot shots at the ice on the castle moat, causing it to break up under the Count’s feet and drowning the demon in its icy depths.
    Father Sandor was the star of a black and white comic strip in the 70s in the House of Hammer horror magazine as Father Shandor – Demon Stalker . The series continued in the Halls of Horror and Warrior magazine, with art by acclaimed British draftsman John Bolton.
    Andrew Keir was married twice. He had five children to his first wife Julia Wallace and one of his daughters is the actress Julie T Wallace. His children and second wife Joyce Parker Scott survived him when he died in hospital in London on 6 th October 1997 aged 71.
    Philip Latham portrayed Klove in the best Karloffian tradition in his most famous movie role. Born in Essex in 1929, he became a British TV favourite for his roles in The Troubleshooters (1965-1972) and the multi-part series The Palisers. At the time of writing, he still lives quietly retired from acting, since 1990, in Essex. The character name, Klove, would be used again in the Scars of Dracula , but it is never made clear if it was intended to be the servant from this film. Certainly, Parick Troughton’s down-at-heel handyman is many times removed from the suave killer played by Latham.
    Thorley Walters appears as the lunatic Ludwig. This is obviously a pointless nod to the character Renfield in the original novel and missing from the first film. Ludwig has been taken in by the monks after he had been found wandering the grounds of Castle Dracula years earlier. He is a master craftsman, producing exquisite covers for the friar’s bound volumes in the library. But Dracula’s influence has never left him and he opens the gates to let the demon enter the monastery in his search for the Kents. Walters’ jittery dimwit appeared in several Hammer films notably Phantom of the Opera (1962), Frankenstein Created Woman (1967) and Vampire Circus (1972). He died aged 78 in 1991