In Hammer’s Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966), Christopher Lee’s Count doesn’t speak. He hisses a few times and that’s all.
Ask Lee why and you get one story: “I didn’t speak in that picture. The reason was very simple. I read the script and saw the dialogue! I said to Hammer, ‘If you think I’m going to say any of these lines, you’re very much mistaken.’”
Ask the screenwriter, Jimmy Sangster, and you get another. In his memoir, Inside Hammer, he wrote: “vampires don’t chat. So I didn’t write him any dialogue. Christopher Lee has claimed that he refused to speak the lines he was given... So you can take your pick as to why Christopher Lee didn’t have any dialogue in the picture. Or you can take my word for it. I didn’t write any.”
Both accounts are on the record. They can’t both be right, and we won’t pretend to settle it.
Whichever one is true, it’s a long way from the book. Stoker’s Count talks from his first scene, greeting his guest at the door: “I am Dracula; and I bid you welcome, Mr. Harker, to my house.”
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