The Vampire (1957)

hyped garbage

Good movie but grossly overrated

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

The biggest spoiler connected with this film is its title. Shot under the working title 'It's Always Darkest Before the Dawn', Pat Fielder's story feels as if it started life as a drama about drug addiction revamped (if you'll pardon the expression) as a horror film. (The line "aspirin never hurt anyone" is ironic, since aspirin is used far more cautiously these days.) The plot, with its drug that causes "regression to a primitive state", sounds more like Jekyll & Hyde. The few perfunctory vampiric details, such as the very inoffensive fang marks left on one victim's neck, and the fact that the pills are extracted from vampire bats, feel like token late additions to the script. The climax takes place out of doors in broad daylight and detective Ken Tobey defends himself with a big hefty stick, which if the film's makers had been on the ball he could have driven into his attacker's chest rather than just used to shield himself with. Veteran cameraman Jack MacKenzie's photography of the small town setting and interiors is clean and attractive, but also fails to deliver in the more shadowy and horrific moments.What makes this film so harrowing to experience is the quality of the acting and the human dimension. John Beal is so sympathetic you genuinely care about him (as you do for the other characters), and for the sake of him and his cute young daughter Lydia Reed you badly want to see some sort of happy resolution for them; even though you know full well that that becomes more and more out of the question with every passing minute. The monster makeup comes as a double disappointment because its crudeness (he looks more like the Neanderthal Man than any vampire) is wholly unworthy of the buildup that Beal's performance has given it.

The monster here is really more of a "Jekyll-Hyde" or "Werewolf" character, although I supposed its need for blood, the fact that the medicine that created him came from vampire bats. and the puncture marks the monster leaves on its victims necks allow the movie to go with "The Vampire". So we'll let that pass. There's a lot to appreciate about this over-looked "monster" movie about a man mutated by science gone wrong into a blood-thirsty fiend, and, of course, the rock-jawed handsome law-man who tracks him down. It's well staged, well acted, and has an element of tragedy in the fate of a well meaning and devoted doctor whose life is ruined by a series of happenstances that no one could have foreseen. Because the doctor is so likable, the screen play becomes more than a bit uncomfortable, because it is obvious from the very beginning that there is no hope for a cure (even before the experts figure out what the issue is) and the character's growing realization about his fate is well portrayed. (And he really did deserve better).Unusual feel for a monster movie, and a fresh take on the idea of vampirism. Really well done.

Straightforward, no-nonsense vampire film that is played with skill by a cast of good actors. John Beal (who many viewers probably have never heard of) was a highly respected, experienced actor who plays this strong lead role just fine. He even gives his character some sympathetic edges.Colleen Gray is excellent eye candy, and the immortal sci-fi actor Kenneth Tobey is on hand (as he should be) in a believable performance as the Sheriff.This is a wide-screen presentation and there is a good DVD available with first-rate picture quality. Limited production budget does not detract here. This is a well-paced tightly done monster film that features genuine, sudden menace as the monster prowls the night. This is not just cheap 1950's monster schlock. It is a legit effort- it's the real deal.

(There are Spoilers)Delivering a package to the very overworked Dr. Campball's , Wood Romoff, lab Tommy the delivery boy, Brad Morrow, finds the doctor unconscious and on the brink of death. Running to get help Tommy gets the towns kindly and understanding doctor Beecher,John Beal, and he sadly declarers Dr. Campbell dead from a sudden heart-attack.While in the late Dr. Campbell's laboratory Dr. Beecher fools around with his latest experiment with regressing his subjects, bats and mice's, and unknowingly picks up a bottle of the doctor's regression pills. Back home suffering for brain-twisting migraines Dr. Beecher is given his headache pills by his 12 years old daughter Besty,Lydia Reed, as he suffers his latest attack and she gives her dad the wrong bottle; the regression instead of the headache pills that in fact was the cause of Dr. Campball's sudden death. It soon becomes apparent, to everyone but Dr. Beecher, that he's becoming a changed man. Changing from a man who was kind loving and caring to a violent savage who craves for human blood attacking his victims and infecting them with capillary disintegration after he bites them, but doesn't suck out their blood, in the neck.More like a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde type of movie then anything that has to with with a vampire like it's title indicates "The Vampire" has poor and confused Dr. Beecher run around town killing people wherever his regression pills start to lose their effect on him. Needing his regression pills to keep him from going insane and becoming homicidal, as well as dead like Dr. Campbell, the doctor is torn between a rock and a hard place in walking the thin red line of sanity and insanity that the regression pills put him on.Soon the local cop Sheriff Buck Donnelly, Kenneth Tobey, starts to get suspicious of just what Dr. Beecher is all about, this after a number of his patients and associates end up dead. Dr. Beecher himself finally realizes that theirs something very wrong upstairs, in his troubled head, and in is own crazy way tries to correct it; by killing himself.Dr. Beecher is caught in the act at his doctors office by his nurse Carol Butler (Coleen Gray), who's very much in love with her widower and handsome boss, as he's trying to stick himself with a syringe loaded with a fatal solution of deadly chemicals. Both embarrassed and outraged at being exposed for the nut-case that he is, the doctor wanted to die with his secret life kept secret, he goes totally bananas, like the crazed doctor in the similar movie "the Neanderthal Man", chasing Carol outside into the woods in his attempt to murder her. Sheriff Donnally who by now had Dr. Beecher's number, in that he's the one who's been murdering people in town, rushes to the scene in order to both save Carol from Dr. Beecher and the doctor from himself by having him put away, in a mental institution, to be studied and, if possible, cured.Not wanting to be taken alive, being what he is what does he have to live for anyway, Dr. Beecher puts up a furious fight and just when it seems that he got the better of the brave but totally helpless lawman Sheriff Donnelly's assistant Sgt. Ryan, Herb Vigran, shows up and puts an end to Dr. Beechers reign of terror by emptying his gun into him.