First of all, here's the informative TCM.com article about this movie.

Earlier today I watched The Brides of Dracula. It had been over five years (probably close to ten) since I previously saw it, and had forgotten pretty much everything about and everyone in it since then. Thus, for all intents and purposes, the new viewing was like watching for the first time.

Some miscellaneous points:

• Superb performance by the always-great Martita Hunt as Baroness Meinster. Likewise, terrific performance by Peter Cushing as Van Helsing.

• Yvonne Monlaur as Marianne is absolutely gorgeous.

• David Peel's handsome Baron Meinster, meanwhile, is the most "Ken Doll"-looking movie vampire I've ever seen. (No doubt the idea was to depict him as Dorian Gray-esque.) The baron looks almost plastic (I don't mean regarding performance, instead solely am referring to appearance). The obvious wig decidedly adds to that effect.

• How shackling one of the baron's ankles is supposed to keep him captive, I don't know, as he's a vampire so can readily re-materialize into a bat and fly off. (Meanwhile, he's very well dressed - and one can't put on or take off pants if there's a shackle on an ankle. [I know, I know: We're not supposed to realize or nitpick about stuff like that in old movies.])

• I've never, in any other vampire film, seen a vampire suck blood from their own mother's (or, for that matter, any female senior citizen's) neck. (It happens off-screen in TBoD, but is made abundantly evident that it occurred.) Creepy.

• Marianne and the baron have perhaps the quickest from-meeting-to-engagement turnaround I've ever seen. She had previously met him for probably all of four or so minutes, then - upon relocating to the girls' school - again saw him for only probably a couple minutes, the headmistress then closes the door for about one minute so they can have some privacy - and they're already engaged when the headmaster quickly reopens the door. That baron is one fast romancer!

• When a vampiress rises, through the soil, from the grave, how is it that everyone else of that village gets buried in a coffin, yet she seemingly had simply been buried (probably no more than just a few feet deep) directly in the soil?

• The actresses portraying the two young newly-minted vampiresses had poor make-up (or perhaps it was related lighting) job done on their faces, which were overly white and not at all matched to their ample body skin that was simultaneously showing. (I suspect that probably identical make-up colour was used all over, including on the faces, but that the lighting simply "read" as much whiter on the faces. Still, that should have been dealt with, and proper adjustment made, at the time of filming, as the mismatched faces just didn't look right, therefore seemed lazy.)

This is a very watchable and pretty well done movie, though rather hit or miss. I rate it 7 (though consider it, if were able to give a more precise rating, 6.7).

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