CHRISTOPHER LEE MOVIE MARATHON
TCM, 6:15 a.m. ET
Starting at 6:15 a.m. ET with 1959’s The Mummy, TCM devotes its daytime lineup to movies featuring the late Christopher Lee, who died earlier this month. And yes, Lee has the title role in The Mummy, co-starring opposite Peter Cushing. Earlier, Cushing and Lee had co-starred in another Hammer Studios horror franchise, 1957’s The Curse of Frankenstein, which TCM presents at 8 a.m. ET. But the duo really struck genre gold with a series of Dracula films, beginning with 1958’s Horror of Dracula (9:30 a.m. ET), a film so successful it spawned six sequels. Two of them are also shown today: 1966’s Dracula, Prince of Darkness at 11 a.m. ET, and 1969’s Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (pictured) at 12:45 p.m. ET. And the daytime tribute concludes with Lee in a non-fantasy role, as the sinister Rochefort in Richard Lester’s superb Seventies swashbucklers, 1973’s The Three Musketeers (at 4 pm. ET) and 1975’s The Four Musketeers (6 p.m. ET).