Wednesday, May 27, 2009

CHRISTOPHER LEE IS 87

Actor Christopher Lee turns 87 today. One of my favourite movies of his, still, is Beat Girl. The famous and Energizer Bunny Thespian is absolutely slimy and elegant in that fun 1959 British flick.

(Beat Girl was scored by "the John Barry Seven", and was John Barry's first film score.)

It is claimed that Lee's least favourite of his own films is Starship Invasions (1977). (No doubt he said this before he appeared in the Star Wars prequels. The difference being Starship Invasions is good, and fun.)

3 comments:

Greg Woods said...

I still haven't seen Beat Girl, and had no idea it was in colour. Another interesting Lee flick, I think around the same year, is Horror Hotel.

Barry Smight said...

The print I saw was b&w. A not uncommon thing as 'television prints' were often struck in b&w, back in the day when most viewers were not watching in colour. (The Home Video version of "Beat Girl" was more than likely pulled from a 16mm 'TV' copy)

A TV print circulating in the early 1970s of "Five Million Years to Earth" was b&w; and that is the way I knew that movie, as many times as I did see it.

Two more examples of colour movies, shown in b&w on TV in the early-mid 70s, come to mind: The Toho classic, "Battle in Outer Space" (which I saw later on the big screen in 'scope' and colour; and the British horror film "Island of Terror" (which worked better in b&w).

Greg Woods said...

Oh yes, I know what you mean. For example, archive.org has B&W TV prints of She Gods of Shark Reef and Flesh and the Spur.... the theatrical versions were colour.