I hadn't seen Blood Of The Vampire before. It's a 1958 horror period piece written by Jimmy Sangster who also wrote a lot of movies for Hammer Pictures. This film is produced by Monty Berman and Robert S Baker. I know Monty and Robert from their producing The Saint and other movies and TV. The film is directed by Henry Cass who directed a bunch of other films I haven't heard of or seen. According to the Wikipedia Magnetic Video's home video release of the film was the first horror film in VHS.
Donald Wolfit plays Doctor Callistratus. He runs a prison for the criminally insane and experiments on the prisons for his medical work. He was executed at the beginning of the film and a stake pushed through his heart. Callistratus's one eyed hunchbacked manservant dug up the body and got a doctor to replace Callistratus's heart with another. Time passes.
Vincent Ball plays a doctor who did a blood transfusion and got sentenced to prison. Callistratus requests the doctor be sent to his prison and he forces him to work in his lab. Callistratus has a problem with his new heart. He needs constant blood transfusions and the prisoner's supply that needed blood. That's where the vampire in the title comes from, there aren't any normal blood suckers in the movie. Vincent's girlfriend, Barbara Shelley, gets a job in the prison when she learns that Vincent is supposed to have died. She's surprised, and happy, when he turns up alive. They plan to escape and eventually do. Callistratus pays for his naughty ways.
It was pretty entertaining in that Hammer sort of way. The script is pretty good as these things go. There's a good hero, a nasty villain, a pretty fiancé and a one eyed hunchback. Wolfit is quite good as Callistratus and there's a bunch of good supporting characters. I enjoyed seeing it and would recommend it to those that like period horror films. Jimmy Sangster and Robert S Berman appear on the commentary track for the movie and I was an much interested in that as I was the film itself.
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