Sir Christopher Lee and Murder Story

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In the film ‘Murder Story’ Sir Christopher Lee was hired to play Willard Hope a writer of mystery novels. He dies half way through the film, since we couldn’t pay him for the whole shoot. An actor of his quality is worth the fee he receives but this was a very low budget movie. He is found in a closet strangled in fact we used a toilet. This was the only small room in the house in Amsterdam. After our first take, the cameraman pointed out it look like Dracula had died. Sir Christopher had spent years creating other characters; sadly the public seem to remember him as Count Dracula in the Hammer Horror movies. We quickly change the make up so Sir Christopher looked more like himself as Willard Hope. I invent the story we lost his open eyes in the darkness of the closet, another case of British diplomacy better known as BS.

In one of the earlier scenes he and co-star Alexis Denisof were walking down a side street in Amsterdam passing one of the many window sex stores the city had. We had created the shop window away from the real red light district. We feared that some unscrupulous paparazzi would take of picture of Sir Christopher looking into one of these windows. Even though this one would be a fake sex shop window with a Dutch actress playing the part of a prostitute.

The street was closed and the local police checked that no one took any pictures. The young actress was very convincing we took several takes to get the scene filmed. I’m not sure if it was the Actors or the crew who seemed to linger too long looking into the window. This was Sir Christopher 164 film and this veteran actor received a Bafta Fellowship on February 13, 2011 what took them so long?

Murder Story written and directed by Edward Arno and Markus Innocenti

Murder Story Trailer link: http://www.edwardarno.com/Edward_Arno_Web_site/Gallery/IMAG012.GIF

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