Boy, does this 1966 movie brings back good memories, memories of a time when we used to set an alarm clock to bring us out of sleep and thusly enjoy late-night viewings of rare movies. Yes, this was before the advent of home video, a time when the enjoyment of watching films was very different and exciting than these days, where almost anything is available anytime.

I remember that Theatre of Death was quite a sexy film and was not disappointed when revisiting it again. This could be my favorite Christopher Lee performance, believe it or not, as he plays Phillipe Darvas, a pushy and rude theater director (but also quite brilliant). You see, Phillipe is pursuing his father’s tradition in staging plays consisting of macabre vignettes in pure Grand-Guignol fashion. Of course, Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol was a real Parisian institution that soon branched into bizarre melodramas, crime stories and horror tales, with sometimes crude but still effective bloody special effects. It was open between 1897 and 1962, often changing owners but still focusing mainly in out-of-the-mainstream projects. A perverse sense of sexuality was more often than not added to the mix.

I’m still astonished that such a rich source has never been more an inspiration for horror movies. You can see some mention of Grand-Guignol in Karl Freund’s Mad Love from 1935 and even briefly in Neil Jordan’s Interview with the Vampire in 1994… but that’s pretty much it. Theatre of Death at least lets us show some background.

Briefly, the plot involves some mysterious murders where the victims have been drained of their blood. All this seems to be connected to Paris’ Le Théâtre de la Mort, where Darvas holds court over his submissive troupe. A police surgeon attracted to a featured actress will look for some clues.

So Christopher Lee (at some point wearing a flashy red sweater) doesn’t seems bored by the proceedings, like he used to be when he felt a project was beneath him. The tongue-lashing he gives an unfortunate actress is probably the key scene of the film and one of Mr. Lee’s best acted moment of his entire career. He will always remain a master at playing this kind of haughty, self-centered assholes. He even puts on some moves on a very fresh and fragile new comédienne, willing to manipulate her to his ends. He becomes our prime suspect in the gruesome killings.

Oddly, the star of the movie is another British actor in the cast who’ll eventually become a James Bond foe, mainly Julian Glover as the surgeon. He finds a little spot in his heart for gorgeous Lelia Goldoni and who can ever blame him? This is an actress that always fascinated me and I remember when I went many years ago to the Cinémathèque québécoise to catch her in John Cassavettes’ brilliant Shadows, where she played an African-American that easily passes for white. I’d love to eventually find some time right here for Lelia Goldoni, but I can’t find much bio information (what are her real ethnic origins, I wonder?). Seems that she started as a dancer and switched to acting by joining Cassavettes’ theatre group. She’s still working in films these days at the age of 71, and wasn’t she a very busy acting coach? Method acting, anyone? A very interesting career. She’s simply drop-dead beautiful here, with thick black hair and soulful eyes.

After a couple of bit parts, Jenny Till was making her real movie debut here. I was amused in seeing that the Internet Movie Database list her birth date as July 21, 1901!!! She must have been barely out of her early twenties in 1966! Her performance is quite strong here, but she mostly spent her career on British television productions. She had the potential to be another Judy Geeson or Susan George…

Director Samuel Gallu staged many of his shots with flair, with sometimes Mario Bava-like color lighting. Only lacking are the supposed horror scenes, where the murders are too often ended in freeze frames of the unfortunate victims’ dismayed faces. The rare glimpse of bloodletting looks like thick paint freely applied on a victim. But Theatre of Death is a more a macabre crime mystery tale than a real horror offering and must be enjoyed that way.

There are a couple of other gorgeous women on display, principally the ill-fated but stunning prostitute and a Black dancer (Lita Scott) that performs in a voodoo sacrifice vignette, while not wearing much on her amazing body (it kind of reminded me of the tiny costume that Debra Paget barely wears in Fritz Lang’s The Tiger of Eschnapur). This was quite a spicy sight for a 1966 production.

Another thing against the film is all that British cast playing French characters with French names while still displaying their original accents… quite odd, and we never believe one minute that this takes place in Paris. Still, I love the script’s original intentions, a departure from familiar Hammer films productions, still quite popular around the world at that time (but not the originators of this film).

Here are some screen grabs that I hope can be worthy of the presentation: