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 This is a combination of "screen shock and flamboyant costume adventure" about
Rasputin who is described as a "wild-eyed peasant monk". He has the ability to
heal people, but he eventually uses these powers to "become increasingly
manipulative and violent." Rasputin gets himself into the royal family's
confidence using these powers. They say that star Christopher Lee's
"multi-layered performance as the monk rates as one of the best portrayals in
any film." 1966, 91 minutes, Widescreen DVD
This is an over-simplified version of that grody Russian monk named Rasputin
who seemed to exist solely to see how far over-the-top star Christopher Lee
and his wig maker could go. As it turns out, they could go pretty far
over-the-top
and it can't be denied that whatever pleasure you manage from this one
derives from Lee's he-man portrayal of the mad monk who had various super
powers whenever it suited him, but was still dumb enough to get tricked into
getting killed. It's pretty clear that this isn't going to go the route of
"serious historical drama" when there's an extended sequence involving Rasputin
drinking an alcoholic doctor under the table for a measly fifty kopecks, when
anyone who's ever taken a history class can tell you that Rasputin wouldn't get
out of bed for less than one hundred kopecks. The movie's cardinal sin is that
it manages to take a guy's life that was shrouded in mystery, intrigue, and
lots of excitement and dumbs it all down into some kind of melange involving
over-protective brothers, drunken sidekicks, and a recounting of Rasputin's
demise that manages to be far less sensational than his actual death supposedly
was. The movie eliminates almost all elements of palace intrigue and just as
things finally get going with Rasputin gaining the confidence of the Czarina
,
the movie makers fast forward everything to the death of Rasputin and the movie
ends. For some reason they must have thought that the first half hour where
the monk is hanging out at a pub healing the innkeeper's daughter, drinking and
dancing, and trying to rape her was much more integral to telling his story
than anything having to do with his attempts to get over with the Romanovs or
his laying the smack down on the various church officials that kept trying to
punk the monk. But at least Chris Lee gets to bug his eyes out and shout a
bunch.  Who was this Rasputin dude, what were his super powers, and where did he get
them? Even though none of these questions were ever answered, I would ask you
to peer into the wide eyes of Mr. Lee and listen to his suggestions: Thou will
not question the dopey script of my film! You will be distracted by my
constant hamminess! From what I read elsewhere, this guy was some peasant born
in Siberia and the next thing you know, he's healing the son of Nicholas II
(odd that there was nary a mention of Nick in this movie). The movie doesn't
give us any of this info and instead plops Raspy down in that pub where he can
demonstrate all the characteristics that would endear him to us for the rest of
his movie. He's really tall, exceptionally hairy, uses a liberal amount of
bronzer (or hits the tanning bed in the Kremlin twice a week), he apparently
can heal folks, he likes drinking, and he likes pumping broads. He's basically
a frat rat except for the healing gimmick. Once he heals up the innkeeper's
wife, he's next rolling around in the hay with his comely daughter. Not a bad
day's work to be sure, but things go awry when her boyfriend shows up
(supposedly Raspy could read minds - at least he always knew who was coming to
his door later in the movie - so I don't get why this one slipped past him, but
it might have been because his super powers were otherwise engaged) and doesn't
buy into the whole "I'm just healing her bosoms" thing. A fight ensues and
Raspy shows us that even though he is a lover, he can also be a fighter when he
has to be. During the melee, Raspy chops this guy's hand off and in a great
display of what we in my trailer park refer to as "rico suave" he goes back to
the gal and starts trying to get frisky with her again. With the severed hand
of her presumably now ex-boyfriend lying near her, she's got herself a serious
headache which is probably all for the best since the rest of the inn has
arrived to beat up Raspy for what he did to that guy. Rasputin makes his
escape, gets threatened to be put on suspension by the church and decides that
he should go to St. Petersburg to make his fortune in show biz.  Once he's in the big city, Rasputin begins to make his reputation on the bar
circuit by defeating the heavily favored Dr. Boris Zargo by drinking his
lightweight ass under the table. It's during this competition that he first
lays eyes on Sonia. She's a lady-in-waiting to Alexandra
and she's had a bit
too much to drink and starts laughing while Rasputin is doing his celebration
dance after beating Zargo. If I had any desire to sit through this movie
again, I'd fire up the audio commentary to see what Chris Lee had to say about
his dancing, but I'll leave that for someone who's actually interested in that,
like Chris' grandkids or something. Raspy is one of those guys that always has
to have the spotlight shining on him and he doesn't like anyone trying to kill
his buzz so he gets in Sonia's face and uses some of that hoodoo voodoo on her
and tells her that she'll apologize to him. I'm guessing that he's supposed to
be some great hypnotist or something, but it all comes off like that time on
that stupid desert planet when old Ben Kenobi tells the stormtrooper to let him,
Luke, and the droids pass (Geez, how did that ever pass for
entertainment?). Sonia shows up at Raspy's swanky new bachelor pad that he
shares with his new best buddy Zargo and Raspy slaps her around, she
apologizes, and then they do what Russians do best (well, after starving that
is). As you might suspect with a guy that has evil mind control powers, he
isn't merely content to use them to live in a flop house with a booze hound and
hump easy Russian broads. He sees an opportunity to get himself some power or
something (I was never really that clear on what it was that Rasputin was after
- though he does end up with a nice house once he's in with the royal family)
and uses his Jedi powers to have Sonia cause the little prince she looks after
to have an "accident" and then has her casually mention that she knows a guy
who
can heal a girl right out of her knickers and that he might be persuaded to
give her
kid some of that good stuff. 
For me, this was the best part of the movie. See, I'm always jacked, just
JACKED! I say, when some rich little brat gets beat up, so when Sonia
nonchalantly pushes the little spoiled priss off a bridge onto the hard ice
below and says something like "Whoopsie!" I was giving one of those cheesy
maniacal
laughs that Rasputin broke out once or twice to make sure we knew he was mad as
a hatter. Rasputin is sent for per the plan and he shows up and saves this
little twerp. From this point forward, the movie gets kind of fuzzy as to what
exactly was going on. Raspy is given a nice house, some patients, and he
starts treating Alexandra
for something, but by and large I was under the
impression that we were just marking time until the film could kill off the mad
monk. In fact, Rasputin doesn't do much more than dump Sonia (he suggests that
she go "destroy" herself so she slits her wrists later on) and then gets caught
up in some lame revenge scheme concocted by the friend of Sonia's brother
(don't ask) and Dr. Zargo. I guess Zargo thought that Rasputin went over the
line when he told Sonia to off herself, so he decides that for everyone's
safety he should kill Rasputin. He enlists this other guy's help and comes up
with some plot where they'll invite Raspy over to see this guy's hot sister
Vanessa, and then poison him. To me, this didn't sound like a great plan to do
away with a Russian Jedi monk, but it hews pretty close to the historical
record so I'll play along. Sometime during all this, Sonia's brother goes off
half cocked and tries to kill Rasputin the old fashioned man-to-man way, but
ends up with a face full of acid for his troubles. Boris gets things all set up. He poisons the wine, he busily injects a billion
pieces of chocolate with poison and declares that Rasputin is a "pig" and will
suck it all down and be dead before you know it, then he hides around the
corner and waits for Raspy to show up. Rasputin appears, sucks down the wine,
eats some candy and drops over dead. Or does he? He gets up and tries to
throttle Zargo, but only gets a syringe in his neck for his troubles. After a
convenient conversation with the dying guy that has an face full of acid,
Zargo's partner rolls into the house to finish Rasputin off himself (he had
qualms before for some reason) and everything ends nice and legal like with an
unconvincing dummy of Chris Lee getting chucked out a window to his death. In
real life when the poison didn't work the guys in charge of wiping him out shot
him several times and when that didn't work, they tied him up and dumped him a
river. When the body was recovered he had untied himself before he finally
croaked. The best part is that he predicted the end of the Romanovs
if he were killed and ten weeks later the Bolsheviks ousted them from power.
Is that Chris Lee's maniacal laughter I hear from beyond the grave? It seems
odd that Hammer wouldn't have taken the opportunity to use these details in
their movie version, but as it is, this movie seemed to be only interested in
providing one of their top stars with a picture that could showcase his dark
charisma. The problem with that is that this is necessarily done at the cost
of having the film give any depth or motivation to Rasputin and reduces him to
a comic book villain, along the lines of some of their later Dracula pictures.
Lee looks like he's having fun doing it, but it has to be marked down as a
missed opportunity overall.
Reviews © 2004
MonsterHunter
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