Andrée Melly is captured as Gina in this striking black-and-white photograph from The Brides of Dracula (1960), staring directly toward the camera with her vampire fangs prominently exposed. Her long dark hair frames her face and falls across her shoulders, while the low neckline of her light-colored period costume creates a dramatic contrast with the dark background. Melly’s wide eyes, bared fangs and confrontational expression make the vampire transformation unmistakable, creating an exceptionally direct image of Gina as one of Hammer Horror’s female vampires.

The photograph is particularly effective because there is almost nothing to distract from Melly herself. The close composition isolates her face, hair, costume and fangs against a largely featureless background, allowing the character’s predatory expression to dominate the image. In black and white, the contrast between Gina’s pale appearance and dark hair gives the portrait an especially stark Gothic quality.

Released in 1960, The Brides of Dracula was directed by Terence Fisher for Hammer Film Productions, with Peter Cushing returning as Doctor Van Helsing. The cast also includes David Peel as Baron Meinster, Yvonne Monlaur as Marianne Danielle, Martita Hunt as Baroness Meinster and Freda Jackson as Greta.

Although its title invokes Dracula, Count Dracula does not appear in the film. Instead, the story centers on Baron Meinster, played by David Peel, extending Hammer’s vampire mythology beyond Christopher Lee’s Count while retaining the Gothic atmosphere and vampire imagery that had become central to the studio’s horror identity.

Melly’s Gina is Marianne’s friend and becomes one of Meinster’s vampire victims. Her transformation supplies some of the film’s memorable female-vampire imagery, and the character’s appearance with exposed fangs has become particularly recognizable among collectors of Hammer photography.

The Brides of Dracula occupies an important place in the early Hammer Gothic cycle. Produced after the success of Dracula (1958), the film again placed Peter Cushing’s Van Helsing at the center of the battle against vampirism, while introducing a new vampire antagonist in Baron Meinster. The production was photographed by Jack Asher, whose work contributed to the richly stylized visual identity associated with Hammer’s early Gothic films.

For Andrée Melly, Gina became one of her best-remembered screen roles. The Liverpool-born actress worked across film, television, radio and the stage, but her appearance as Gina remains particularly familiar to generations of Hammer Horror enthusiasts.

Carefully restored from historic photographic source material and professionally lab-developed, this museum-quality photograph is presented uncropped, preserving the complete image area contained in the source. Meticulous restoration recovers facial detail, hair texture, costume definition, tonal range and photographic clarity while retaining the dramatic character of the original black-and-white image.

For collectors of Andrée Melly, The Brides of Dracula and Hammer Horror, this is an especially powerful piece of British Gothic horror photography—a close, confrontational image of Gina with her vampire fangs exposed, preserving one of Melly’s most recognizable screen associations from Hammer’s classic 1960 vampire film.