Barbara Steele in Green Makeup And Karloff at the End

 

Curse of the Crimson Altar (1968) was a pleasurable experience and kind of sad. It has three horror icons that I always jump to see if I hadn't yet seen a particular film of theirs yet. This was one of the films featuring the three icons -- Karloff (as an authority in witchcraft), Steele (as a witch, Lavidia Morley, who was burned at the stake and haunts the descendants of those who were responsible for her death), and Christopher Lee (as a descendant of Lavidia, looking to end the line of Mannings and fulfill his ancestor's revenge) -- down through the years I had on a special watch-list needing to be checked off. While Barbara Steele is once again a witch who haunts the dreams of an antiquities salesman in London, Robert Manning (Mark Eden), arriving at Greymarsh looking for his missing brother -- who went off to buy some antiques from owner of Craxted Lodge, Morley (Lee). Morley has a niece, Eve (Virginia Wetherell), Robert immediately clicks with. The obvious chemistry would indicate they might eventually sleep together...and, sure enough, they do. Robert's dreams will be tied to a room he stays in at Morley's mansion, offered a lodging while in the area. It is a special "witches' celebration" in those parts, a burned effigy to Lavidia dedicated to her death with fireworks sent off as well. Eve's fellow twenty-something's gather for one of those decadent 60s parties we see in Swinging London era film as Robert arrives. Meanwhile, Professor John Marsh (Karloff) arrives with his manservant, Basil (Michael Warren), equipped with a special brandy Robert drinks with very little "respect"...how Marsh reacts to Robert's gulping of the drink, not even letting it breathe and taking in the scent of it, just cracked me up. Basil's birdhunting skills certainly aren't appreciated by Robert when his head is nearly taken off accidentally.

Lee, with his manners and politeness, still carries this air of suspicion, and you just know the longer Manning is in the area conducting his investigation the closer he'll get to a truth Morley has tried to keep secret. Steele is made up in green for some reason, with this big headdress, commanding this priest to pen a book she expects the Mannings to sign in blood in order to secure their fate, with a jury dressed in goat, skull, and deer masks whipping virgins and the like. I wish she had more to do, but I digress...

Lee remains non-threatening until his niece helps his target conduct his investigations, eventually consulting a Vicar (Rupert Davies; "Dracula Has Risen from the Grave"). When Morley is no longer able to hide the fact that Robert's brother stayed at his mansion, his plan to fulfill his promise to Lavinia must be set in motion.

I took to the score of the film...it really seemed to compliment the film quite a bit. And how could I not groove to seeing Lee and Karloff sharing brandy together on "witches' night"?! Even if Steele is just featured in green paint and commands for Mannings to sign their name, her presence is never a bad thing to me. And the English setting is never a place I complain about spending 90 minutes in as a viewer, particularly when Karloff is there, in wheelchair or deteriorating physically, still giving his dialogue atmosphere and spins it with that rich voice (his lisp was a bonus always to me...I never found it a detriment when he talked). Lee is once again scholarly, upright, commanding, polished, and portrays himself as anything but a threat...until he is. I will say a pleasant surprise was Karloff coming to the rescue as it would seem his professor would want to be of assistance to Lee, not a deterrent to his plans because he would seem to embrace the practices. Karloff clearly believes Lavidia shouldn't have been burned alive and all that but he also dismisses taking out the lives of Mannings who had nothing to do with it. It was just a joy to see him still making that dialogue hum...even as his time on this earth was drawing to a close. 3/5