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

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  • Posts: 15,818
    Ludovico wrote: »
    ToTheRight wrote: »
    Dracula is loosely based on Prince Vlad III Tepes of Valachia (1431-1476), who was a national hero for keeping the Ottomans out. His father Vlad II was called Dracul because he was a knight of the Hungarian Dragon Order. Dracula means son of Dracul.

    Yes. In fact, Stoker discovered the name "Dracula" right before publication. The character was originally called Count Wampyr, and is also thought to be inspired by Sir Henry Irving. Stoker was intrigued by the history of Rumania and Vlad Tepes and added that element very late into the process. The book took Stoker seven years to complete.

    Stoker found the name in a footnote. He knew close to nothing about Vlad Tepes. Not his true name, not his favourite method of execution, not his ethnicity. Just his nickname and a bit of his history with the Turks.

    So in that respect, it's more accurate to say he simply just took the name Dracula from that little bit of Rumanian history, and next to nothing else.

    I think he based the Count much more on Sir Henry Irving. My biggest pet peeve with the Coppola film is the Dracula is portrayed outright as Vlad Tepes, rather than the character Stoker envisioned. In the novel, I believe Van Helsing mentions Dracula might be related to that family line, but not the actual Impaler himself.

    Been some time since I read up on Bram. However, I believe it was the very eve of publication he changed the title from "THE UNDEAD" to "DRACULA".
  • Posts: 14,824
    @ToTheRight yes that's pretty much what it was: he liked the name Dracula and ran with it. Your average Dracula fan knows more about Vlad Tepes than Stoker ever did. Elizabeth Miller in Dracula : Sense and Nonsense explains in details what we know of the genesis of Dracula all the false assumptions we now have regarding the novel. Even the connection with Irving is dubious at best. Dracula in many ways was a stereotypical villain of the Victorian era, up to eleven. Stoker used as much vampire folklore as gothic literature.
  • Posts: 157
    It's amazing that in the book Dracula is destroyed by Harker and Quincey ,yet has any of the movies filmed this scene,I know Coppola version has some of the scene but changes the who kills Dracula.
    What I find strange is Harker is left to die in the castle by Dracula leaving him to the three female vampires ,not only does he survive he manages to rid the world of Dracula.
    Quincey indeed gives his life delivering the killing blow to Dracula.
    Why has no director filmed a perfect version of the book into a movie , it's a shame
  • Posts: 15,818
    @Ludovico , sounds like I need to find myself a copy of Elizabeth Miller's book. Also Stoker's notes while working on the novel were published some time back and I'd love to track that down.
    I've always loved IN SEARCH OF DRACULA by Raymond McNalley and Radu Florescu, but that work is more than 45 years old now.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Amazing fact: A Norwegian translation was not published until 1974.
  • Posts: 14,824
    ToTheRight wrote: »
    @Ludovico , sounds like I need to find myself a copy of Elizabeth Miller's book. Also Stoker's notes while working on the novel were published some time back and I'd love to track that down.
    I've always loved IN SEARCH OF DRACULA by Raymond McNalley and Radu Florescu, but that work is more than 45 years old now.

    Miller might be THE authority on vampire lore and Dracula in particular.

    I've read in the foreword of one of the editions I have that Stoker, like Stevenson and Shelley before him, was first inspired by a nightmare but I don't know how true it is. Miller if I'm not mistaken challenged this.
  • Posts: 616
    The film version of IN SEARCH OF DRACULA, starring Christopher Lee, is unintentionally hilarious.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    edited July 2018 Posts: 17,804
    Well, yesterday here in NI was a very rainy day, after another long dry spell. After work, I decided to go a visit to one of my favourite little secondhand bookshops where I usually buy a rake of interesting stuff each time I visit. The owner has become a friend and due to my level of spending has very kindly afforded me 10% discount over the years. In the window on this occasion I saw a lot of books on Dracula, vampires and the occult. I learned they had all come in as a job lot from one source.

    Among some other books, I bought a 1974 paperback of Bram Stoker's posthumous short story collection Dracula's Guest (1914), a first edition of Barbara Belford's Bram Stoker: A Biography of the Author of Dracula (1996), and a paperback of Bob Curran's Explore Vampires (2007). I look forward to reading these, and this thread was the spur for my interest, so thank you.
  • Posts: 17,280
    y7n276ser43h31xvdbwmwxesdr.jpg
    This is the Dracula I'm most familiar with!
  • M_BaljeM_Balje Amsterdam, Netherlands
    Posts: 4,441

    Hotel Transylvania 3

    Now in the cinema.

    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5220122/releaseinfo?ref_=tt_ov_inf
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    MV5BZjU5NTg2YzUtNmEzYy00ZTQ1LTlhZmQtZWRlYjJhNzhmMzliXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjUwNzk3NDc@._V1_.jpg

    Turns out Donna Lucia Sciarra is a vampire.
  • Posts: 14,824
    Gosh that movie was bloated.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    41PGPmnFxKL._SL500_.jpg

    Has anyone read this? Collection of short stories by Stoker, published 1914, two years after his death.
  • Posts: 14,824
    41PGPmnFxKL._SL500_.jpg

    Has anyone read this? Collection of short stories by Stoker, published 1914, two years after his death.

    Yes I have. It's found in various anthologies (the Penguin Book for instance) and sometimes some editions as an officious "first chapter" or prologue. Which I think is misleading. Some people said it was an extra chapter taken off because it would make the novel too long. My theory is that it was a draft chapter of an early treatment of the novel, discarted as the story moved into a different direction (switching Austria to Transylvania for instance). It's good as a standalone story but does not fit with the rest of the novel.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 17,804
    41PGPmnFxKL._SL500_.jpg

    Has anyone read this? Collection of short stories by Stoker, published 1914, two years after his death.

    Not yet, but I've just bought it. See my post above for more details, Thundy.
  • Posts: 14,824
    I'd recommend to read it after the novel.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    41PGPmnFxKL._SL500_.jpg

    Has anyone read this? Collection of short stories by Stoker, published 1914, two years after his death.

    Not yet, but I've just bought it. See my post above for more details, Thundy.
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    41PGPmnFxKL._SL500_.jpg

    Has anyone read this? Collection of short stories by Stoker, published 1914, two years after his death.

    Not yet, but I've just bought it. See my post above for more details, Thundy.
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    41PGPmnFxKL._SL500_.jpg

    Has anyone read this? Collection of short stories by Stoker, published 1914, two years after his death.

    Not yet, but I've just bought it. See my post above for more details, Thundy.

    I must have read your post before you edited it.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    edited August 2018 Posts: 17,804
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    41PGPmnFxKL._SL500_.jpg

    Has anyone read this? Collection of short stories by Stoker, published 1914, two years after his death.

    Not yet, but I've just bought it. See my post above for more details, Thundy.
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    41PGPmnFxKL._SL500_.jpg

    Has anyone read this? Collection of short stories by Stoker, published 1914, two years after his death.

    Not yet, but I've just bought it. See my post above for more details, Thundy.
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    41PGPmnFxKL._SL500_.jpg

    Has anyone read this? Collection of short stories by Stoker, published 1914, two years after his death.

    Not yet, but I've just bought it. See my post above for more details, Thundy.

    I must have read your post before you edited it.

    Perhaps. I saw it in the window of that shop and simply had to buy it, as I'd never heard of it, nor knew that Bram Stoker had written any other Dracula story. Anyway, as @Ludovico says, it's a bit more complicated than that.
  • Posts: 14,824
    Dracula's Guest is good as a short story, although it is not quite a self contained story. But it does not fit the rest of the novel at all. The unnamed narrator does not seem to be Jonathan Harker and the supernatural is revealed far too early to be consistent with the events of the book. Had Harker witnessed what the narrator of Dracula's Guest had on Walpurgisnacht he'd be running back to London before even setting foot in Transylvania.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Is there any truth to this garlic tip, I wonder.

    Fun fact: Garlic originated in Central Asia and Iran, but over 80% of the world production now takes place in China.
  • Posts: 14,824
    Is there any truth to this garlic tip, I wonder.

    Fun fact: Garlic originated in Central Asia and Iran, but over 80% of the world production now takes place in China.

    What do you mean about the garlic tip?

    I find funny that holy water is often featured in vampire movies as something to wound or kill the vampire. In Dracula there's no mention of it. But they use the wafer extensively.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    I mean that garlic would have discouraged vampires. Is there anything substantial behind it? For instance, does it fend off present day bloodsuckers from the insect kingdom?
  • Posts: 14,824
    I mean that garlic would have discouraged vampires. Is there anything substantial behind it? For instance, does it fend off present day bloodsuckers from the insect kingdom?

    Well it's an old folkloric tradition probably inspired by the effect garlic apparently has on blood circulation. It has only limited effect on Dracula (you open the window and take away the flowers of garlic and he doesn't seem bothered by the remaining smell).
  • edited August 2018 Posts: 5,808
    For me, Although I had read the novel in 1976, my first screen Dracula was neither Sir Christopher nor Bela Lugosi, but that guy :

    p5051_p_v8_aa.jpg

    As far as adaptations go, it wasn't bad, and after all, Sir Laurence Olivier played a very good Van Helsing. Plus, first time we saw an automobile during the climactic chase. And John Williams's musi was top notch.



    I should revisit it one day, if I can.

    Since then, of course, I saw all the Christopher Lee entries (still the best portrayal of the Count for me), the Bela Lugosi version (not bad), and Gary oldman (not as good as it should have been).

    EDIT : Oh, and how could I forget the very funny Love at First Bite. "Without me, Transylvania will be as exciting as Bucharest... on a Monday night." Too bad that for the DVD release, they couldn't get the rights for the original song at the disco :

  • Posts: 14,824
    Oh boy I hated the Langela Dracula.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    It is one of the worst.
  • Posts: 15,818
    Big fan of Frank. However, I'm not a fan of John Badham's color timing for the later releases. Awful colors now whereas in the cinema it was quite stunning.
    I'll take the 1979 version over the '92 version honestly. More fun with a stronger cast: Langella, Olivier, and Donald Pleasence.
    Wonderful costumes and a lush John Williams score.
    Still as a kid I always preferred the Hammer horrors.
  • Posts: 14,824
    I don't know why people insist on making Dracula an angsty antihero. He should be a predator.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Dracula has excellent taste in architecture.
  • Fire_and_Ice_ReturnsFire_and_Ice_Returns I am trying to get away from this mountan!
    Posts: 23,334
    Dracula is one of my favourite books, I took Gothic Novels as one of my English Lit modules at University and studied Bram Stoker's excellent work.

    Francis Ford Coppala film adaption is probably the film I like the most, though I grew up watching the Hammer Horror films so alot of sentiment toward them.
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