Like the later Countess Dracula (1971), Rasputin the Mad Monk was an attempt by Hammer to graft the company’s Gothic horror to a more sober historical drama. Rasputin is the more engaging film thanks in no small part to great performances, particularly from Christopher Lee in the title role and from Barbara Shelley as one of the women who falls under his spell. The film isn’t quite the match of Lee’s towering performance but it’s an entertaining if entirely revisionist take on the oft-filmed tale of the almost indestructible Rasputin and his mesmeric hold of the Imperial Russian court.
In a pub in a small Russian village, unkempt holy man Rasputin bursts into the bedroom of the ailing wife (Mary Quinn) of the publican (Derek Francis) and appears to heal her of whatever afflicts her merely by laying his hands on her face. A hard-drinking and philandering libertine, Rasputin angers and outrages the church establishment but on arriving in Saint Petersburg, where he forces his way into the home of Dr Zargo (Richard Pasco), catches the eye of Sonia (Barbara Shelley), a lady-in-waiting to the Tsarina (Reneé Asherson). Using his mesmeric powers, Rasputin seduces Sonia and uses her as a conduit to the ruling family, manipulating her into causing an accident that seriously injures the czar’s young son Alexei (Robert Duncan) and apparently healing him with his powers. But Rasputin’s rise to power and his proximity to the royal family alarms Sonia’s brother Peter (Dinsdale Landen) and conspires with Ivan (Francis Matthews) whose sister has Vanessa (Suzan Farmer) has also caught his wandering eye, to murder him. But that’s going to prove to be a lot harder than either of them imagined.
Rasputin the Mad Monk was one of the four films that Hammer made in one production block in the summer of 1965, shot back to back with Dracula Prince of Darkness (1966) and going into release on a double bill with The Reptile (1966). Anyone looking for a semblance of historical accuracy is definitely in the wrong place here – these are the events of December 1916 as filtered through the lens of Gothic melodrama, Rasputin as Dracula-like monster as much as the master manipulator that history suggests. The exact events surrounding Rasputin’s death are shady with only the written account of Prince Felix Yusupov in his memoirs being the most famous telling of the tale though in recent years his claims have been questioned by historians.
The film was made with the threat of legal action hanging over Hammer from Yusupov and his family (he died two years after the film was released), warning that there would be a costly price to pay if the film brought the family’s name into disrepute in any way, which explains why Ysuspov himself is not mentioned by name in Hinds’ script, Rasputin’s principal assassin being renamed Ivan. The family had already pursued a lengthy legal case against MGM in 1935 when the Princess Irina Yusupov took exception to the character of Princess Natasha – which she claimed was clearly based on her – being raped by Rasputin in Richard Boleslawski’s Rasputin and the Empress, claiming that she’d never met the holy man. So perhaps it’s not surprising that Hammer opted to rewrite a lot of the historical events portrayed in Rasputin the Mad Monk.
But adherence to the facts – what few are known – was never uppermost in the mind of Anthony Hinds when he wrote the script, as usual under his “John Elder” pseudonym. He was more interested in the myth of Rasputin than the facts. This Rasputin, played magnificently by Lee, is a constantly angry man, railing against the world while indulging all the physical pleasures it has to offer. Lee swaggers through the film imbuing Rasputin with an icy arrogance (“When I go to confession I don’t offer God small sins, petty squabbles, jealousies…I offer him sins worth forgiving”), turning him into a demonic figure, an unrepentant abuser and hypocrite, every bit the equal of his Dracula in the contemporary Dracula Prince of Darkness.
Lee is matched perfectly by Barbara Shelley’s Sonia, whose insanely jealous outburst is one of the film’s more disturbing highlights. She gives her all in this scene and is excellent throughout, all the more remarkable given that she suffered a back injury during production and was in great pain a lot of the time. Shelley was afforded a lengthier death scene in production, but Sonia’s suicide was removed, probably at the behest of the British censors, leaving her to be found already dead on her bedroom floor. Hammer also cut, for reasons harder to fathom, the climactic fight between Rasputin and Ivan.
Sharp, making his third film for Hammer after The Kiss of the Vampire (1963) and The Devil-ship Pirates (1964) uses the 2.35:1 CinemaScope frame in lots of interesting ways, offering unusual framing and creating some arresting tableaux. Some home video transfers are compromised – a 2.10:1 version prepared by Anchor Bay removes some of the edges of the frame but does away with the often-distracting distortion that makes some characters standing at the extremes seem weirdly out of proportion.
Sharp stages some memorable set-pieces, not least of which is a vengeful Peter’s stalking of Rasputin in a darkened room and getting a jar of acid in his face for his troubles. Sadly he wasn’t able to do much about the terrible dummy that Rasputin briefly turns into as he plunges from the window to his death on the same ice that hade given way and killed Dracula in Dracula Prince of Darkness. But it’s only a very tiny flaw in an otherwise typically gorgeous and beautifully made film.
Rasputin the Mad Monk is an enjoyable melodrama with Lee seemingly relishing every moment of playing this larger-than-life character but its double-bill mate The Reptile has the edge – it’s the more nuanced, inventive and interesting film. Aside from a few grisly moments here and there – a hand is lopped off, the acid attack – Rasputin isn’t much of a horror film (take Lee out of the equation and it’s a beautifully made but rather ordinary historical drama), but Rasputin’s apparently genuine healing abilities, mesmeric power over women and his near indestructibility all nudge the film over the line into fantasy.
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