The Making of a Legend
(From the Christopher Lee Web)
"The Making of a Legend" is a DVD series about Christopher Lee's career as a film actor. With a career
spanning over 56 years and over 289 screen credits, if he was to dedicate an average of only seven minutes
to talk about each film, the anecdotes, the directors and the movie legends he worked with, it would take
around 35 hours to resume his career. There are films however that may take him an hour, meaning that a
series this long will take roughly 5 years to accomplish. As far as we know, no one has ever attempted a
similar task so there are no benchmarks available. For a start it would not be commercially feasible for
any production company to agree for such series. It also does not have the immediate appeal that a very
short resume of a couple of hours would have.
This is a series for the future, it is history being recorded. There are not many actors around today who
can relate with precision what it was like to work with legends like Gregory Peck, Burt Lancaster, Erroll
Flynn, Omar Sharif, John Gielgurd, Vincent Price, Peter Cushing, Charlton Heston, James Stewart, Olivia de
Havilland, John Huston, Billy Wilder, Orson Welles to name but a very few. He is listed in the Guinness
Book of Movie Facts and Feats as the actor with the most screen credits as well being the most widely
connected actor in Hollywood.
Initially, this series was to be first completed in full and then released as a DVD compilation of about
8 hours. Once it was realised 23 films took around five hours to film, a lot would need to be left out. For
the average moviegoer or film aficionado, a short version would be more appealing. After giving it a lot of
thought, and knowing that there are many Christopher Lee fans who are interested in hearing his whole
unrehearsed story now, a decision was made to release a limited number of individual volumes as the
contents become available.
The first release, Volume I is targeted to these fans. Perhaps there are clips that should have been cut,
movies that not many people are interested in and his parts too small to even mention, but each and
everyone of them has a story or small anecdote and they all form part of his career.
Full commercial versions, which will be highly edited and given much more thought and attention, will start
to be made available in a couple of years time. For now, fans can enjoy these individual uncut releases.
Review:
"This DVD film-biography is an unique piece of work: it is aimed at movie buffs in general and at the many
thousands of Christopher Lee fans in particular. Volume One (of what will become a multi-part work) spans
the years from 1947 to 1957, giving an insider view of 23 movies, often with stills or movie clips for
added interest. The presentation style in this DVD is remarkably personal - as if Christopher Lee were
relaxing in an armchair in your own sitting room, sharing his memories of films past, and his views
(sometimes quite robust!) of the movie industry past and present. Of course it would be possible to watch
this 3 hours of fascinating material at one sitting, just like a conventional DVD movie, but ideally, to
get the full flavour of this production, you should insert the disc into your PC DVD drive and prepare
yourself for the InterActual experience! You will have access to online material which can be seen only via
the Internet, and this will be updated regularly to keep you coming back for more. Afficianados of DVD
movies will be familiar with the notion of hidden features . . . you may be sure there are some surprises
for you on this disc!"
- Jane Rubin, DRA-Media
To see all this and more online, go to : Christopher Lee Web Site
Copyright © 2000-2008 Davis Rubin Associates Limited. All Rights Reserved.
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