I have a problem with the classic horror story "Dracula". It is, without a doubt, one of the best researched horror stories of all time - everything we generally know about vampires comes out of it's pages, because Abraham "Bram" Stoker spent years researching it before it was written and published in 1897. Stoker was actually a part-time novelist, and worked usually as theater manager for the great Sir Henry Irving and Ellen Terry. This explains the paucity of his number of total novels (roughly seven) in a thirty year career ending before his death in 1912. That said, my problem is that his strengths as a constructor of plots and of researching an arcane area of occult knowledge are not matched by a serious key to being a novelist: being readable. Of the major occult novelists, only the American Charles Brockden Brown can create such lugubrious prose (but to be fair, every now and then both Stoker and Brown let down their halting prose styles and relax enough to write something truly haunting in terms of dialog).
Because of his weakness I only half enjoyed Dracula the novel. I was thrilled by the circumstances he set up in his tale of the blood - driven Transylvanian Count, but I hated reading his dialog because his characters are so stiff. Therefore, when others are critical of what is cut out of some of the film transitions of his stories (such as the classic 1931 Bela Lugosi film, based on the play Lugosi starred in) I find that the cuts are welcome as enlivening the work for the screen.
Lugosi's performance has been called one of the great "operatic" performances captured on celluloid. That is Lugosi captured the grandeur of his twisted nobleman with that impeccable old pedigree - he made that cape of his seem as natural as the wind. It remains a great performance, even as we realize it is has become a source of jokes and spoofs (best seen in Mel Brooks/Leslie Nielson's "Dracula: Dead And Loving It").
But for my money, the best performance of the role was done in this 1977 British production (shown that year on Masterpiece Theater) that starred Louis Jourdan in the title part. For the first time the role was not just purposely making the Count sinister and grand but good looking as well. Jourdan, impeccably suave and handsome, looked like he could charm a woman into a fatal tryst with him. In a way this production mirrored the nearly contemporary Broadway revival of the old play that starred a young, good looking Frank Langella as a sexy Count.
The story was better told than the movie versions - they included the subplot about the American Quincy Morris (Richard Barnes) who is a rival of Jonathan Harker (Bosco Hogan) for Lucy Westenra (Susan Penheligon), and while Morris's character was combined with another minor figure it retained it's importance, as well as it's sad fate (at the conclusion Dracula is able to kill Morris before he is destroyed). On the other hand, the script writers got rid of one annoyance in the Stoker version: Morris is supposed to be an American from Texas - he sounds like he never was within two thousand miles of Texas.
Jourdan did some nice tricks with the aid of the director, including one thing that was not done in any of Lugosi's: he is seen at one point climbing the wall of his castle to come into the window of Renfield's (Jack Sheppard's) room. Done slowly (Jourdan is heard creeping before he appears on the wall) it was a genuinely unsettling moment, especially as Jourdan is shot from the head down. The beast-nature of the Count was never quite shown that way before.
As his opponent, Abraham Van Helsing, Frank Finlay gave a good account of that master skeptic - skeptical of dismissing "old wives tales" because there may be some truth to them. His handling of the unfortunately necessary destruction of Mina Westenra's (Judy Bowker's) Vampire infected corpse was far more realistic than the versions in Lugosi's film involving Edward Van Sloan in that same role. Mina is aware here of what Van Helsing is doing, and part of her senses it has to be done to free her soul.
It has not been seen for decades, and hopefully still exists to be viewed again. If I only give it a "9" it is due to my problems with that novel as a novel, not with this series.
Because of his weakness I only half enjoyed Dracula the novel. I was thrilled by the circumstances he set up in his tale of the blood - driven Transylvanian Count, but I hated reading his dialog because his characters are so stiff. Therefore, when others are critical of what is cut out of some of the film transitions of his stories (such as the classic 1931 Bela Lugosi film, based on the play Lugosi starred in) I find that the cuts are welcome as enlivening the work for the screen.
Lugosi's performance has been called one of the great "operatic" performances captured on celluloid. That is Lugosi captured the grandeur of his twisted nobleman with that impeccable old pedigree - he made that cape of his seem as natural as the wind. It remains a great performance, even as we realize it is has become a source of jokes and spoofs (best seen in Mel Brooks/Leslie Nielson's "Dracula: Dead And Loving It").
But for my money, the best performance of the role was done in this 1977 British production (shown that year on Masterpiece Theater) that starred Louis Jourdan in the title part. For the first time the role was not just purposely making the Count sinister and grand but good looking as well. Jourdan, impeccably suave and handsome, looked like he could charm a woman into a fatal tryst with him. In a way this production mirrored the nearly contemporary Broadway revival of the old play that starred a young, good looking Frank Langella as a sexy Count.
The story was better told than the movie versions - they included the subplot about the American Quincy Morris (Richard Barnes) who is a rival of Jonathan Harker (Bosco Hogan) for Lucy Westenra (Susan Penheligon), and while Morris's character was combined with another minor figure it retained it's importance, as well as it's sad fate (at the conclusion Dracula is able to kill Morris before he is destroyed). On the other hand, the script writers got rid of one annoyance in the Stoker version: Morris is supposed to be an American from Texas - he sounds like he never was within two thousand miles of Texas.
Jourdan did some nice tricks with the aid of the director, including one thing that was not done in any of Lugosi's: he is seen at one point climbing the wall of his castle to come into the window of Renfield's (Jack Sheppard's) room. Done slowly (Jourdan is heard creeping before he appears on the wall) it was a genuinely unsettling moment, especially as Jourdan is shot from the head down. The beast-nature of the Count was never quite shown that way before.
As his opponent, Abraham Van Helsing, Frank Finlay gave a good account of that master skeptic - skeptical of dismissing "old wives tales" because there may be some truth to them. His handling of the unfortunately necessary destruction of Mina Westenra's (Judy Bowker's) Vampire infected corpse was far more realistic than the versions in Lugosi's film involving Edward Van Sloan in that same role. Mina is aware here of what Van Helsing is doing, and part of her senses it has to be done to free her soul.
It has not been seen for decades, and hopefully still exists to be viewed again. If I only give it a "9" it is due to my problems with that novel as a novel, not with this series.