Dr. E's Doll Museum Blog: Recent Finds

Dr. E's Doll Museum Blog: Recent Finds:  Lately, I've slowed down collecting considerably.  I am involved in moving and finding homes for my other love, a library of book...

2 Books of Interest; Happy 2017!! After the Funeral and History of Criminal Justice, Third Edition

Here are two books of related interest you will enjoy, and I also urge you to visit our friends at Terror at Skellington Manor:


Murphy, Edwin.  After the Funeral: The Posthumous Adventures of Famous Corpses. NY: Barnes & Noble, 1998.


I just started it, but there are great stories, not gruesome or "icky" about famous people and their after life adventures.  For example, we know for sure what happened to Eva Peron's body, and the tale of the 14th century Portuguese princess exhumed after 5 years to be crowned queen!  Well written narrative, intelligent, but easy to read.

Public Domain Image

Johnson, Herbert A and Nancy Travis Wolfe: History of Criminal Justice, 3d Edition.  2003 I used to teach this class, and the book is interesting just as a read.   When I taught it, there was reference to Erzebet, and an assumption that she was guilty.  I can't find that reference in this edition.  Hmm?  I'm going to reread the book and keep you all posted.  Could someone have read this blog, or Kim Craft, Tony Thorne, German Murderesses, and other books that seek the truth and delve more closely into the true story?

Public Domain

Antique Doll Collector Magazine: Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukah! A Peaceful 20...

Antique Doll Collector Magazine: Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukah! A Peaceful 20...: We wish everyone a Happy Holiday Season, and a Safe, Happy New Year!  Love from all of us at Antique Doll Collector Magazine, and of course,...

Antique Doll Collector Magazine: Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukah! A Peaceful 20...

Antique Doll Collector Magazine: Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukah! A Peaceful 20...: We wish everyone a Happy Holiday Season, and a Safe, Happy New Year!  Love from all of us at Antique Doll Collector Magazine, and of course,...

From Hever Castle, Home of Anne Boleyn; Happy Holidays!!

See below from Hever, Anne Boleyn's childhood home; Oh, to be in England!!

Wrap up warm and blow away the cobwebs, walk off the Christmas pudding and take a stroll in the gardens where the warm bark of the redwood trees glows against the winter sky. On the way up to the Castle the yew topiary stands majestically and the Winter Garden displays attractive and interesting colours and structures. For the more energetic take abracing walk around the Lake. After your Winter Walk, warm up in the Moat Restaurant where hot seasonal meals will be served, in theCastle with its welcoming log fires, or head to the Hever Shop for some seasonal sale items. As our little gift to you, when you visit for Winter Walks, you can purchase aCastle & Gardens ticket for theGardens only price.  Buy day visitor tickets online to save.

CHILDHOOD HOME OF ANNE BOLEYN

The Brides of Dracula on Svengoolie, with Erzebet as Muse

Showing as I type tonight, The Brides of Dracula, on Svengoolie, MeTV.com.  You will remember that originally, Bram Stoker wanted to make Dracula a woman, and that woman would have been based on the Erzebet myths.  Baroness Meinster, who purloins an innocent French school teacher to her spooky castle on the hill, is very much an Erzebet figure.  The Baroness wears a red, silk lined black Dracula cape, and 19th century clothing befitting a dowager of her station, in basic black lace, of course.  She has a creepy son, who is, of course, the vampire.


You may want, at this point, to refer to the novel so Deanna Raybourne and some of her characters.









From Wikipedia comes the following synopsis of this movie, a Hammer film, as is Countess Dracula with Ingrid Pitt:


The Brides of Dracula is a 1960 British Hammer Film Productions Horror film directed by Terence Fisher. It stars Peter Cushing as Van Helsing; David Peel as Baron Meinster, a disciple of Count Dracula; Yvonne Monlaur as Marianne Danielle; Andrée Melly as her roommate, Gina; Marie Devereux as a village girl; and Martita Hunt as the Baroness Meinster.^[2]
The film is a sequel to Hammer's original Dracula (USA: Horror of Dracula) (1958), though the vampires possess abilities denied to vampires in the previous film, much like those in the original novel. Alternative working titles were Dracula 2 and Disciple Of Dracula. Dracula does not appear in the film (Christopher Lee would reprise his role in the 1966 Dracula: Prince of Darkness) and is mentioned only twice, once in the prologue, once by Van Helsing.


The motif is the same as the stories of Erzebet with regard to a young girl, headed for girls' academy, who finds herself stranded at an in, and taken away to a sinister castle on a hill above the village.  We,as viewers, surmise she is not the first, nor will she be the last, young girl lured to the castle.  Here, however, the young girls are not there to slake an aging Baroness's search for blood, but they are there to appease the evil, but hansome vampire son, the real Baron, who is the Master of this Rampling Gate. 


There is even an evil servant woman, reminiscent of Anna Darvulia or Ilona Jo.


There is even a hint of Jane Eyre in the movie's plot; the madwoman in the attic is played by the evil son, chained, until the young, naïve French girl lets him go.


This film is a mad, but fun Svengoolie romp.  Here is more from IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053677/combined


Merry Christmas, and beware The Witching Hour!!

Dr. E's Doll Museum Blog: Belated Happy Thanksgiving, Season's Greetings, an...

Dr. E's Doll Museum Blog: Belated Happy Thanksgiving, Season's Greetings, an...: Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Good Doll!!I would like to let everyone know that I am writing fairly regularly for the R. John Wright ...