Tag Archives: Circus of Fear (1966)

I know it’s become common to note the passing of every sixties and seventies actor & actress. Social media lights up like a Christmas tree at the death of the smallest character actor from the rarest cult cult film. Such is the power of nostalgia.

But I’m genuinely saddened by the death of Christopher Lee. Given he was 93 years of age, it is no surprise, but somehow it felt like he would be around forever.

Lee has been a dominant film figure for me since my early teens. I remember many Saturday nights when my parents dragged me to some long, boozy dinner party they were attending. I would always be placed in the den or rumpus room and left to my own devices in front of the television until late at night. There was usually a horror movie on. More often than not it had Christopher Lee in it. I wasn’t much of a film connoisseur. Who is when they are 13 years old? But there was something about this tall, imposing, deep voiced man that commanded my attention. Like one of the young maidens he frequently sunk his teeth into, I was totally in his sway. Those early Christopher Lee horror films had a profound impact on me, on a cinematic par to the first time I watched Bogart in The Big Sleep or my first viewing of John Boorman’s 1967 classic, Point Blank.… Read more