Today marks the 110th birthday of the great Vincent Price, and the 99th of the equally great Christopher Lee. A good time to pay respects to these legends of the movie industry!
Obviously, Tim Burton was a huge fan of both actors, and was extremely lucky to cast both in his movies. Vincent Price was first, narrating Tim’s early break through short film Vincent (1982), which told the story of a young boy who dreams of being just like the real Vincent Price.
8 years later Price and Burton got to work again, with
Price appearing in a small but important role in Edward Scissorhands (1990). Playing the Inventor who created
Edward, Price was already old and frail when filming the movie, making his few
scenes with Johnny Depp all the more bittersweet.
Later Tim Burton started working on a documentary
about Price, Conversations with Vincent,
but sadly Mr Price passed away on 1993, before it was released. Tim Burton
would never go on to finish the project.
Meanwhile, Christopher Lee had been appearing in quite a patchy string of movie roles through the 1990’s. His roles in comedies such as Police Academy: Mission to Moscow (1994), and The Stupids (1996) must not have been his personal favorites, but on the other hand he was very proud of his performance in the biopic Jinnah (1998).
But quite unexpectedly, in 1999 at the age of 77,
Christopher Lee would appear in a hit movie, which would mark the start of a
remarkable 10+ year run of roles in the very biggest of Hollywood blockbuster
hits. This 1999 movie was of course Sleepy
Hollow, where Tim Burton cast Lee in a small but powerful role as the
Burgomaster who sends Johnny Depp’s Ichabod Crane on his fateful assignment to
the town of Sleepy Hollow.
Lee followed this by appearing in The Lord of the Rings and Star
Wars prequel trilogies, whose directors Peter Jackson and George Lucas
were, like Tim Burton, childhood fans of Lee’s early works in the horror genre.
In 2005 Lee and Burton got to work again in two movies; Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Corpse Bride. Lee’s final appearances in Burton movies came in Alice in Wonderland (2010), and Dark Shadows (2012), in more minor
roles.
Both Price and Lee worked with Burton towards the ends
of their careers, which partly resulted in their roles being relatively small.
But however limited their screen times might have been, they did offer very
memorable and powerful performances within those moments. And for the lifelong
fans of these two gentlemen, even just the thrill of seeing their names on the
always beautiful opening credits of a Tim Burton movie was always a treat.
Each of the 6 feature length movies that Burton did with either Price or Lee had the same main star, Johnny Depp. Somehow this feels fitting, perhaps because Depp seems to possess some of the same ageless celluloid charisma as the old masters. It’s also interesting to see Price as Depp’s creator/father in Edward Scissorhands, and then Lee as Depp’s father in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Perhaps sometime in the future Depp might return to the limelight, as an elderly character actor, playing a Price/Lee type of role in a Tim Burton movie?
Of course the careers of Vincent Price and Christopher
Lee spanned decades and included dozens of memorable roles, much more than I
could list here. I will just conclude by listing a few of my favorites, which I
urge everyone to seek out.
a few Vincent Price favorites:
The Three Musketeers (1948)
The Baron of Arizona (1950)
House of Usher (1960)
The Masque of Red Death (1964)
Witchfinder General (1968)
The Abominable Dr. Phibes & Dr. Phibes Rises Again
(1971-1972)
a few Christopher Lee favorites:
The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960)
Taste of Fear (1961)
The Devil Rides Out (1968)
The Three Musketeers (1973)
The Wicker Man (1973)
Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)
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