Hey folks, Harry here... Man, meeting Christopher Lee is one of those things that once you've done.... You'll never forget... ever. Presence is something that people often talk about people having, but Lee... He is more like an entity in the room. A being that you can not move your eyes from. And folks, having seen him in ATTACK OF THE CLONES, I can say with absolute confidence that you will be singing his praises even higher than you have before. He is a force of nature in the film. Stunning beyond words. Not only does he have the coolest lightsaber, but have you ever seen a full blown Sith go at it? Well... you will, and you'll shake and cheer and hooop and hollar. Here's Mr Hat with a story about Christopher Lee in Finland...
Greetings, Harry!
It's Mr. Hat writing to you all the way from Finland...
You may not remember me, but I wrote a review of The Fellowship of the Ring back in early December, when I'd gotten a lucky break and saw an early screening of Jackson's masterpiece.
I thought I should write you again, since I (and about 150 other people) were lucky enough to attend a meeting with the one and only, Christopher Lee. The Finnish Film Archive and some other people had organised a viewing of six Hammer horrorflicks (or fantasy, rather, as Mr. Lee pointed out). Earlier during the day there was a meeting with him at the Archive's movietheatre Orion, where we saw clips of his movies and, more importantly, heard him speak about his life and movies for nearly two hours.
I must tell you, his voice is like honey... It didn't really matter whether he had a microphone or not (there was something wrong with the first one he got...); once he started talking, you had no choice but to listen.
The whole session started off with the latest Star Wars trailer, and afterwards he told us this was the first time he had seen it, or anything of the film, for that matter. We saw clips from The Mummy, The Wicker-Man, Ercole al centro della terra (Hercules at the Center of the Earth), Moulin Rouge (1952), The Battle of the River Plate and many others. Mr. Lee was amused at seeing himself on the screen, and many times reflected on the people he had worked with.
At one point, after the clip from The Mummy, Christopher Lee got pretty emotional. He told us that seeing Peter Cushing on that screen made him sad, and then shared with us something that I think is worth repeating (from my own memory without any notes) here:
"I don't want to sound gloomy, but at some point of your lives every one of you will notice that you have in your life one person, one friend whom you love and care for very much. That person is so close to you that you are able to share some things only with him. For example, you can call that friend, and from the very first maniacal laugh or some other joke you will know who is at the other end of that line. We used to do that with him (Peter Cushing) so often. And then when that person is gone, there will be nothing like that in your life ever again."
Wise words, spoken with complete sincerety...
Mr. Lee told us also that he likes coming to Finland to get away from all the hubbub of movie-making and the busy world generally. He commented of the serenity, peace and solitude you can find especially in northern parts of our country. This was his fourth visit to Finland, and surprisingly his first happened already in 1940! There was an interesting and comical story to it: At that time he was at the Wellington military academy, and they had a Christmas break. Finland was in the middle of Winter War fighting the Russians, and Christopher Lee and his friends heard ot this. They decided to come here and help. Yes, thats right! So, about 30 or 40 of 17 or 18-year old blokes from England came here and left everybody here perplexed. "Are you tourists? Didn't you know there's a war going on here!?", they were asked by Finns. "Well, we thought we'd come to help..." was their reply. "Thank you very much." was all the Finns could say. Needless to say, they never got within miles and miles of any Russians.
Oh, one more thing! When asked about his future projects, Mr. Lee told us he doesn't really like talking about those, since he is superstitious. He feels that once he tells of a project in the works, something will go wrong. Still, he revealed that they are going to remake The Devil Rides Out, and he's already got a producer, but now they 'only' need to get the money. He told us that he's got two other great scripts, but nothing more on those. And finally, he told us that they are going to remake The Wicker-Man in the US with Nicolas Cage in the lead! How silly is that!?
Well, that's it from me. I hope this is of some use to you, though not much new in here, I guess. And I didn't make any notes at the meeting, so all of this is based on what stuck to my head for longer than 24 hours.
All in all, it was truly an enjoyable afternoon with Christopher Lee; every once in a while somebody interesting makes it all the way up here...
Take care, and keep up the good work!
Yours,
Mr. Hat
