31 - The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires aka The 7 Brothers Meet Dracula

The martial arts horror film The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires was released in 1974. 

It stars.

Peter Cushing as Professor Van Helsing 

Christopher Lee… oh hang on… John Forbes-Robertson as Count Dracula (Not the son of Johnston Forbes-Robertson, but did play Mr Badger in 2 episodes of Jonny Briggs) 

Robin Stewart as Leyland Van Helsing  (29 episodes of Sons and Daughters) 

Julie Ege (pronounced eg-gay", not "edge") as Vanessa Buren (1962 Miss Norway and competed in Miss Universe pageant Awarded the title "The New Sex Symbol of the 70s" by the head of Hammer Film Studios, Sir James 

Carreras. Hammer featured her as a not-so-glamorous prehistoric woman in its ‘Creatures the World Forgot’ (1971). The film was a flop, but Julie went on a round-the-world publicity tour and became a leading pin-up model. 

She lived for six years in the 1970s with Tony Bramwell, former assistant to The Beatles and later a successful record and film music promoter. Their next door neighbor was Brian May of the rock group Queen. To date, she is the only Norwegian James Bond girl (in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969))

Shen Chan as Kah, David Chiang as Hsi Ching and Szu Shih as Mei Kwei all stars of innumerable asian movies. 

The film began development due to Don Houghton's father-in-law knowing Hong Kong film producer Run Run Shaw. Houghton flew to Hong Kong to discuss a project with Run Run and his brother Runme who agreed to finance 50% of the film. It was shot between October 22 and December 11, 1973, at Shaw Brothers Studios in Hong Kong. 

The Shaw Brothers were not happy with how Roy Ward Baker (Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde, Scars of Dracula, The Vampire Lovers, and A Night to Remember) was directing the film and had martial arts sequences choreographed by one of their studios directors Cheh Chang (uncredited), these additional scenes that led to the Eastern version of the film to run at 110 minutes (20 mins longer that the UK version).  

Renee Glynee who was the continuity supervisor for the film stated that working with the Shaw Brothers Studios was "a big experience" due to language differences and that director Roy Ward Baker was constantly screaming at the Chinese actors to stop spitting on set. In an interview in the late 1990’sBaker described the shooting of this film as "a nightmare". He discovered that Hong Kong films were made silent and looped in post-production due to the constant noise of traffic and aircraft. He lamented that Peter Cushing was practically catatonic on set, having recently been widowed but still wanting to do the film to give him something to do.

On its release in the United States, the film was truncated further by 20 minutes, re-titled The 7 Brothers Meet Dracula and loops several remaining scenes to fill the running time. 

In all territories, the film was a financial failure. 

This is the only Hammer "Dracula" film not to feature Count Dracula's name in the title.

Forbes-Robertson, long time stand in for Big Chris Lee (was considered to fill the cape in Scars of Dracula before Lee was persuaded to return) was furious when he discovered that he had been dubbed by David de Keyser.  

Lee tried to talk Peter Cushing into not doing the project, as he considered it below an actor of Cushing's calibre. Lee told Cushing that Ralph Bates was willing to step in and do the film if Cushing wanted to back out, but Cushing replied that he thought the change of scenery might help his ongoing grief induced depression. 

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