"I don t drink...wine."- The Dracula Thread

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  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    I recently watched the British tv film COUNT DRACULA (1977) directed by Philip Saville and starring Kamal Khan in the title role. I didn t care much for it.
  • Posts: 15,818
    I recently watched the British tv film COUNT DRACULA (1977) directed by Philip Saville and starring Kamal Khan in the title role. I didn t care much for it.

    I like it, though the odd video effects somewhat limit certain scenes.
    Jourdan is amazingly understated, almost too much, but I can appreciate his interpretation regardless.
    I find this one the most true to the novel in spite of Jourdan not given the Stoker described appearance. I love the atmosphere, costuming, and cast.

    It is on the long side, so I usually watch it in two sittings.
    This isn't a Dracula film I grew up with, so I'm not quite as partial to it as I am, say the Langella or Palance versions.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    There are some good sets, and interesting camera angles. That s about it.
  • Posts: 14,830
    I recently watched the British tv film COUNT DRACULA (1977) directed by Philip Saville and starring Kamal Khan in the title role. I didn t care much for it.

    Best Mina imo, one of the best Harker too. Mediocre Van Helsing, terrible miscast as Dracula. Very faithful adaptations sometimes, but taking some baffling liberties with source material.

    I'd say this though: the TV feel makes some scenes fairly creepy and unsettling, if not downright scary. Because it looks so real in a mundane way.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Yes, the score is quite sinister as well.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Bram-Stoker-3.jpg
  • Posts: 15,818
    Ludovico wrote: »
    I recently watched the British tv film COUNT DRACULA (1977) directed by Philip Saville and starring Kamal Khan in the title role. I didn t care much for it.

    Best Mina imo, one of the best Harker too. Mediocre Van Helsing, terrible miscast as Dracula. Very faithful adaptations sometimes, but taking some baffling liberties with source material.

    I'd say this though: the TV feel makes some scenes fairly creepy and unsettling, if not downright scary. Because it looks so real in a mundane way.

    I love the on location Whitby scenes. Right out of the novel.
  • Posts: 14,830
    Bram-Stoker-3.jpg

    The one and only. Often imitated, never surpassed. The father of modern horror.
    ToTheRight wrote: »
    Ludovico wrote: »
    I recently watched the British tv film COUNT DRACULA (1977) directed by Philip Saville and starring Kamal Khan in the title role. I didn t care much for it.

    Best Mina imo, one of the best Harker too. Mediocre Van Helsing, terrible miscast as Dracula. Very faithful adaptations sometimes, but taking some baffling liberties with source material.

    I'd say this though: the TV feel makes some scenes fairly creepy and unsettling, if not downright scary. Because it looks so real in a mundane way.

    I love the on location Whitby scenes. Right out of the novel.

    It comes short on so many levels and it fails at what it tried to be: a faithful adaptation. But there's still a lot to love and I rather like the naturalistic approach, which is what I think a faithful adaptation of the novel should take in terms of settings and characters.
  • Posts: 15,818
    I think Jourdan as Dracula would fit in more with an adaptation of the Hamilton Deane play a'la Lugosi and Langella. He'd look great in the white tie , tailcoat and opera cloak.

    His subdued performance as Dracula would be more at home in that type of setting.

    The version he did really called for a Lee or Palance type of actor who could feasibly embody the Stoker written character.
  • Posts: 14,830
    Lee's mere presence could have lifted the miniseries.
  • Posts: 15,818
    Ludovico wrote: »
    Lee's mere presence could have lifted the miniseries.

    It really should have been Lee in the role there. Especially donning the long white mustache as he did in the Jess Franco film.
    With Lee as the Stoker described Count, replacing the staking at the climax with the Bowie Knife, fix up the Quincy character a bit and you'd a have a decent adaptation of the novel.
  • Posts: 14,830
    ToTheRight wrote: »
    Ludovico wrote: »
    Lee's mere presence could have lifted the miniseries.

    It really should have been Lee in the role there. Especially donning the long white mustache as he did in the Jess Franco film.
    With Lee as the Stoker described Count, replacing the staking at the climax with the Bowie Knife, fix up the Quincy character a bit and you'd a have a decent adaptation of the novel.

    Oh yes. Have Holmwood, Seward and Morris be three different characters like in the novel, have Mina and Lucy friends and not sisters as well... What could have been.

    I don't even mind the low tech fx come to think of it. It adds to the naturalistic look. In the original novel there's very little that seems blatantly supernatural. Stoker like many of his contemporaries had the supernatural elements manifest at the corner of the eye.
  • Posts: 15,818
    Ludovico wrote: »
    ToTheRight wrote: »
    Ludovico wrote: »
    Lee's mere presence could have lifted the miniseries.

    It really should have been Lee in the role there. Especially donning the long white mustache as he did in the Jess Franco film.
    With Lee as the Stoker described Count, replacing the staking at the climax with the Bowie Knife, fix up the Quincy character a bit and you'd a have a decent adaptation of the novel.

    Oh yes. Have Holmwood, Seward and Morris be three different characters like in the novel, have Mina and Lucy friends and not sisters as well... What could have been.

    I don't even mind the low tech fx come to think of it. It adds to the naturalistic look. In the original novel there's very little that seems blatantly supernatural. Stoker like many of his contemporaries had the supernatural elements manifest at the corner of the eye.

    True. I love the natural style. Very realistic in many ways. Jourdan's make up is subtle, simply fangs, nails and harry palms.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    ToTheRight wrote: »
    Ludovico wrote: »
    ToTheRight wrote: »
    Ludovico wrote: »
    Lee's mere presence could have lifted the miniseries.

    It really should have been Lee in the role there. Especially donning the long white mustache as he did in the Jess Franco film.
    With Lee as the Stoker described Count, replacing the staking at the climax with the Bowie Knife, fix up the Quincy character a bit and you'd a have a decent adaptation of the novel.

    Oh yes. Have Holmwood, Seward and Morris be three different characters like in the novel, have Mina and Lucy friends and not sisters as well... What could have been.

    I don't even mind the low tech fx come to think of it. It adds to the naturalistic look. In the original novel there's very little that seems blatantly supernatural. Stoker like many of his contemporaries had the supernatural elements manifest at the corner of the eye.

    True. I love the natural style. Very realistic in many ways. Jourdan's make up is subtle, simply fangs, nails and harry palms.

    We all know what that means.
  • Posts: 14,830
    I wonder why they don't go naturalistic more often in horror movies. One of the many, many, many things I hated about the Coppola version was the overuse of fx, even in moments that did not w
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    NOSFERATU: PHANTOM DER NACHT/NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE (1979) was shot in German and English, and is a tribute to the Murnau film from the 20s. By the 70s, the copyright had expired, and so Klaus Kinski is here called Dracula. Werner Herzog has received a lot of criticism for animal cruelty during production.

    The Harbourmaster in the film was played by the father of an aquaintance of mine, I recently discovered,
    ff6fc794d247d82eb712128ec5926231.jpg
    Isabelle Adjani in the film.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    The American tv series CLIFFHANGERS (1979) consisted of one hour episodes split in three, featuring 20 minute segments of three different storylines in the serial format: STOP SUSAN WILLIAMS, THE LOST EMPIRE and THE CURSE OF DRACULA. It consisted of ten episodes and starred Michael Nouri as the Count.
    c9340a8fd80493c7c4765cf137a8f0e8.jpg
  • Posts: 15,818
    The American tv series CLIFFHANGERS (1979) consisted of one hour episodes split in three, featuring 20 minute segments of three different storylines in the serial format: STOP SUSAN WILLIAMS, THE LOST EMPIRE and THE CURSE OF DRACULA. It consisted of ten episodes and starred Michael Nouri as the Count.
    c9340a8fd80493c7c4765cf137a8f0e8.jpg

    I remember seeing this in edited TV movie form as THE WORLD OF DRACULA.
    Dracula poses as a night school college professor. Nouri with his blow dried curly hair and large stand up collared cape is a bit similar in style to Langella's Count that same year.
    Nouri wasn't bad at all, and I'd take him over any of the post Coppola Dracula's that have appeared in the past 25 or so years.
  • Posts: 14,830
    I was thinking about what I said a few days ago here and there's very little source for fx extravaganza in the original novel. You never see Dracula mid transformed into a bat or a wolf for instance, and his supernatural manifestations are minimalistic : he's seen as very strong, he crawls down a wall, his reflect is not shown, he has long teeth, etc. It's either very faint, or equivocal. And it works beautifully.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Much Dracula in 79 as well. Another one was LOVE AT FIRST BITE, the comedy that was cooked up after George Hamilton (Count Vladimir Dracula!) entertained screenwriter Robert Kaufmann with Bela Lugosi impressions. Another friend of Kaufmann, Peter Sellers. brought director Stan Dragoti on board.
    MV5BOGRlMTk5NWYtYWRkYi00YTVlLWExMTItN2E5NzM5MjAxNzM0XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjUyNDk2ODc@._V1_.jpg
    The movie isn t very funny imo.
  • Posts: 15,818
    Much Dracula in 79 as well. Another one was LOVE AT FIRST BITE, the comedy that was cooked up after George Hamilton (Count Vladimir Dracula!) entertained screenwriter Robert Kaufmann with Bela Lugosi impressions. Another friend of Kaufmann, Peter Sellers. brought director Stan Dragoti on board.
    MV5BOGRlMTk5NWYtYWRkYi00YTVlLWExMTItN2E5NzM5MjAxNzM0XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjUyNDk2ODc@._V1_.jpg
    The movie isn t very funny imo.

    One of the first Dracula movies I ever say so I have a soft spot for it. One of George Hamilton's best roles, IMO as a spoofy Dracula.
    Good costuming and make up. Apparently the make up artist who did George here also worked with Lugosi. Nice homage to the 1931 classic. I love the white lining in his cape as well.
    Most home video versions replace "I love the Nightlife" with a generic disco number.

    The other Dracula disco film from 1979 was NOCTURNA: GRANDDAUGHTER OF DRACULA, starring Nai Bonet. John Carradine as an older Dracula. Very rare and hard to find.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    ToTheRight wrote: »
    Much Dracula in 79 as well. Another one was LOVE AT FIRST BITE, the comedy that was cooked up after George Hamilton (Count Vladimir Dracula!) entertained screenwriter Robert Kaufmann with Bela Lugosi impressions. Another friend of Kaufmann, Peter Sellers. brought director Stan Dragoti on board.
    MV5BOGRlMTk5NWYtYWRkYi00YTVlLWExMTItN2E5NzM5MjAxNzM0XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjUyNDk2ODc@._V1_.jpg
    The movie isn t very funny imo.

    One of the first Dracula movies I ever say so I have a soft spot for it. One of George Hamilton's best roles, IMO as a spoofy Dracula.
    Good costuming and make up. Apparently the make up artist who did George here also worked with Lugosi. Nice homage to the 1931 classic. I love the white lining in his cape as well.
    Most home video versions replace "I love the Nightlife" with a generic disco number.

    The other Dracula disco film from 1979 was NOCTURNA: GRANDDAUGHTER OF DRACULA, starring Nai Bonet. John Carradine as an older Dracula. Very rare and hard to find.

    Yes, I read about it. Directed by Harry Hurwitz, it features the original Hotel Transylvania. The cartoons are probably lifted directly from it.
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  • Posts: 5,808
    I promised you that I would talk about Dracurella, and that's what I'll do. Created in 1973 by the late and lamented spanish artist Julio Ribéra (who passed away in may 2018), Dracurella is the daughter of Dracula :

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    I know what you will say : there have been a lot of daughters of Dracula over the years. There was this one :

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    This one (at the same period than Dracurella) :

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    And more recently this one :

    monster-high-pics-of-draculaura-frankie-stein-monster-high-draculaura-doll-ghoul-doll-png-download-easy-coloring-pages-for-kids.jpg

    And of course this one :

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    But Dracurella is apart of those. For a start, she's completely human. For another, she was adopted by the count. When she was a baby, Dacula's servant kidnapped her to offer her as a snack to his master. But one look in her eyes made the count warm up, and he decided that, rather than drink her dry, he would adopt her. However, when she grew up, the young woman rebelled and decided that, rather than becoming a vampire, she preferred to live the life of a housewife, complete with a husband, a kid, a dog, and all possible electric appliances, in short, a complete domestic bliss. But nothing is ever easy for the daughter of Dracula, especially since she suffers from a condition : the monsters love her, but the normal humans fear or hate her. As a kindly doctor told her in her first published adventure : "Good people want to do you bad, bad people want to do you good" (and when she ansers : "But, doctor, you're a good man and you want to do me good", he answers : "Oh, I had forgotten to tell you :My name is Dr. Jeckyll", before chasing her in the woods). So, pursued by every possible evil creature under the moon, she stil manage to live her dream life, with the help of a dragon who'll become her dream husband, and later on her dream son, while trying to escape her father (who wants her back in his castle as queen of the vampires) and the Evil Queen (whose mirror has told her that Dracurella was the fairest of them all).

    The series was pre-published in the french magazine Pilote from 1973 to 1982, and three albums were published. A fourth was available only on the net (but not anymore), and a fifth has never been published. Later on, Julio Ribéra, with the help of writer Christian Godard, worked on the series Le Vagabond des Limbes, but that's a story for another time.

    Ribera-Julio-Le-Fils-De-Dracurella-N-2-Livre-697031006_L.jpg

    dracurellacouv03.JPG

  • GoldenGunGoldenGun Per ora e per il momento che verrà
    Posts: 6,786
    That’s a great find @Gerard!
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    In 1979 John Badham s Dracula also came out. It has been mentioned here before. Frank Langella as Dracula. A romantic film based on the theatre play, just like the Lugosi version. Like Lugosi before him, Langella also starred in the theatre version, which ran from 1977 to 1980.

    Donald Pleasence as Dr Jack Seward. This film takes place in 1913.
  • Posts: 5,808
    Famous for being the only time where the vampire hunters used an automobile to chase the count. At least in the period setting (not counting the modern times).
  • Posts: 14,830
    It was a really rubbish movie I think.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    It s been 30 years since I saw it, but it left no impression.
  • Posts: 5,808
    Still, great score by John Williams, you have to admit that.
  • Posts: 14,830
    It s been 30 years since I saw it, but it left no impression.

    I envy you.
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