|
Dan Curtis' DraculaRating:
Release Date: 27 August, 2002 Retail Price: $14.98 OUR Price: $13.48 You SAVE: $1.50! Cast: Complete Cast (7 total) |
Dan Curtis' Dracula Reviews
Jack Palance is miscast, but Richard Matheson's script is interesting
This 1974 television movie version of "Dracula" is an attempt to adapt Bram Stoker's original novel. Director Dan Curtis had some bona fides in the realm of vampires as the producer of the television soap "Dark Shadows" and the prime time drama "The Night Stalker." More importantly, the script was written by Richard Matheson, who just in terms of his television resume was the renowned writer of not only classic episodes of "The Twilight Zone" but also the scripts for the television movies "Duel" and "The Night Stalker." The problem here is the decision to cast Jack Palance as Dracula. He is not as bad as John Carradine, but he is heading in that direction, not because Palance is a bad actor but because he is just flat out wrong for this role, especially since there is a sense of presenting the Count as a tragic figure, which should manifest itself in more ways than looking sad.
The fidelity to Stoker's novel is the main strength of the first part of the film where Jonathan Harker (Murray Brown) goes to meet the Count in Transylvania, and Matheson earns bonus points for linking the vampire to Vlad the Impaler. However, because the movie is made for television there are some extensive cuts. Reducing the band of vampire hunters who join with Dr. Van Helsing (Nigel Davenport) to just Arthur Holmwood (Simon Ward) is understandable, but the decision to jettison everything at the lunatic asylum hurts (although I supposed once you lose Renfield you really cut your link to Universal's 1931 "Dracula"). What we get in its place are the flashbacks that try to create sympathy for Dracula mixed in with what happens in England where Jonathan's fiancée, Mina Murray (Penelope Horner) visits Whitby to be with her friend Lucy Westenra r (Fiona Lewis), who starts sleepwalking and evidencing a loss of blood. Holmwood calls in Dr. Van Helsing to solve the case, and it is he who tells them about the nosferatu. However, Lucy is doomed and that leads to the final mad dash to beat the Count back to his castle in Transylvania. In terms of finishing off Dracula, this one comes up with one of the better endings.
Palance is miscast, actually being closer to the portrayal of Dracula by Christopher Lee, saying little but trying to look vicious. If this were a Hammer film, fine, but that is not what the script indicates. Meanwhile, Davenport is simply making bad choices in the role of Van Helsing, so that you never feel the Doctor is smart enough to take down the Count. You can decide for yourself which one of these two you would most like to get rid of, but I will maintain that a different actor as Dracula, one who would bring to life the charming and dangerous Count of the novel, could have made this one of the best Dracula adaptations ever. Everybody else in the cast is okay, although seeing Pamela Brown as Mrs. Westenra is bittersweet; the actress who made her mark as Jennet Jourdemayne in Christopher Fry's "The Lady's Not for Burning" died the year after making this film.
"Dracula" was the last of a series of classic horror stories that Curtis remade for television, going back to 1968's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," and then versions of "Frankenstein" and "The Picture of Dorian Grey" in 1973, and "Turn of the Screw" and this film in 1974. However, the main reason I round up on this one in the end is simply because of Matheson's script. You just need to try and look past the casting to see what he was trying to do in adapting Stoker's novel. Then you can decide where this adaptation stands in relationship to "Nosferatu," the Lugosi "Dracula," "The Horror of Dracula" from Hammer, "Count Dracula" by Jess Franco with Christopher Lee, the BBC adaptation of "Count Dracula" with Louis Jordan, the Frank Langella "Dracula," the Werner Herzog remake of "Nosferatu the Vampyre, " Francis Ford Coppola's opulent "Bram Stoker"s Dracula" with Gary Oldman, and, for something interestingly different, Guy Maddin's ballet adaptation "Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary." Just do not be surprised if this one comes out dead (or undead) in the middle.
ok but should have had a different ending
this is a good adaption of the novel but i thought the ending of the movie was too common. i saw that ending in the "horror of dracula", made in 1958. another thing, in the book, johnathan harker did not become a vampire. i dont know why they did that and i would only get this if you dont like the book, otherwise, stay away.
More Customer Reviews (6 total)
You like Dan Curtis' Dracula?
|
