Like Karloff and Lugosi, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee partnered in several beloved horror movies that are all the more loved because these two particular actors appeared in them together. Unlike Karloff and Lugosi, Cushing and Lee’s partnership extended beyond the screen. They were close friends who spoke of each other in only the most rapturous tones. That friendship also affected their work, as when Lee prevented Cushing from deserting the Horror Express production by gently reminding him of the good times they had together.
The love Cushing and Lee shared makes Mark A. Miller’s Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing and Horror Cinema all the more pleasurable to read. There isn’t a single behind-the-scenes photo of the actors together in this book in which they are not laughing.
Originally published in 1995, Miller’s book is a number of things. It is a biography of the two actors, as well as an intense history and critique of the 22 films in which they both appeared. Because Cushing and Lee do not share scenes in several of these movies— and in some such as Scream and Scream Again, their roles amount to little more than cameos— the two stars occasionally fade into the background. Interestingly, and to his book’s credit, Miller does not relax the intensity of his focus for these films or the ones that he does not personally like, such as the terrifically campy Dracula AD, 1972. Regardless of the film, Miller studies it closely with accessible clarity and manages to always loop Cushing and Lee back into the narrative as he hops from film to film. Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing and Horror Cinema covers a lot of ground, but Miller does it with such purpose and charm that it’s as impossible to get bored reading his book as it is impossible to get bored while watching The Curse of Frankenstein.
Sadly, Mark A. Miller died in 2014 as he was preparing an updated edition of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing and Horror Cinema. So he passed the project along to his own good friend, David J. Hogan, who brings it up to date while honoring Miller’s voice, opinions, and instructions. In the case of The House of Long Shadows, Miller directed Hogan to reassess the film because Miller thought he might have been too hard on it in his original edition.
The new edition also makes room for references to post-’95 projects such as the Lord of the Rings featuring Lee and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, in which a computer-generated Cushing makes a posthumous appearance as Grand Moff Tarkin. Miller and Hogan’s collaboration is a fitting fate for Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing and Horror Cinema. It is clearly one born of the writers’ mutual love and respect, much as Lee and Cushing’s partnership was.
