Sir Christopher Lee was born 92 years ago today, on May 27, 1922 and we want to wish him a very Happy Birthday! Even at the age of 92, he shows no signs of slowing down, and continues to be involved in a number of music and movie projects.
How is Christopher Lee celebrating his birthday? Last year, he released Charlemagne: The Omens of Death and he has followed that up with a brand new heavy metal album that is available today.
The new album is titled Metal Knight and features seven new tracks. The official Charlemagne Productions website has an audio player on their site that will allow you to preview Metal Knight and the previous releases before you buy them. Unfortunately, it will not play on iOS devices due to to it being a Flash audio player, so keep that in mind if you’re visiting with an iPhone. You can also find the album on iTunes and other digital outlets.
I wanted to help celebrate Christopher Lee's birthday by introducing some of our younger readers to his past films, and have included a number of movie trailers to watch.
In recent years, the average moviegoer probably will recognize Christopher Lee as Saruman in The Lord of the Rings films or Count Dooku from the second and third Star Wars prequels. However, he has over 275 credits, including playing a Bond villain in The Man With the Golden Gun and Lord Summerisle in the 1973 cult classic The Wicker Man. He also has multiple Hammer credits, playing characters including Dracula, The Mummy, and Frankenstein's monster.
I was first introduced to Christopher Lee in The Man with The Golden Gun and some of the Hammer Dracula films. Since then, I've caught up on most of his movies, many which regularly cycle on my Blu-ray/DVD player over the course of each year. It's really difficult for me to pick a favorite, but I tend to favor the films where he shares screen time with Peter Cushing. They had a great on-screen chemistry, were best friends in real life, and it's always fun to watch them play off each other.
In past years, I suggested a number of Christopher Lee titles available over Netflix's streaming service, but they lost many of their classic horror movies. Still, there are plenty of options on Amazon instant or you can pick up some of the recent Hammer Blu-ray / DVD releases of their classic titles.