Today, we’re watching the 1979 version of Dracula, starring Frank Langella. I’ve only ever seen it once so I’m looking forward to getting into this one.
Before we get started, what would you say to someone who’s watching it for the very first time?
It’s actually a good entry into the canon that is Dracula.
Frank Langella wasn’t an obvious choice to play Dracula, but he works quite
well. He doesn’t have the menace of Christopher Lee, of course – he’s more of a
suave character – but he works.
That doesn’t mean it’s flawless. It starts in Whitby, so you
miss everything at the castle and the brides. Some of the characters have been
changed and some are just missing. Even so, it’s an enjoyable romp.
It’s the time, of course. Compared to today’s standards, you
just shake your head. You have to remember that Dracula was right on the
cusp of the video nasty era, when some really horrific (and really great) stuff
came out. Sometimes, you need that gore to make it work – consider The Evil Dead.
They didn’t know what gratuitous horror was until the video nasties came
out.
What would you give Dracula now? A 15? Most horror films
got an X rating then, but you can see worse on telly now. Buffy was scarier
than this.
As the names are coming up during the opening credits,
all I’ve got to say is, “Whoa. That’s a helluva cast.”
Yeah, it’s a good, British, 70’s cast. To get someone like Laurence Olivier to play Van Helsing is a real coup. It’s just a shame he wasn’t in it
more. But even the likes of Sylvester McCoy in a nothing role (as an orderly,)
you’re like what the actual fuck?
Trevor Eve was good as Harker, too. I almost forgot about him. By the time this was filmed, he had just about hit it big.
Donald Pleasence was... an interesting choice for Jack
Seward. Thinking about his campy, over-the-top, sometimes cringey style, I feel
like he would have made a much better Renfield. Honestly? I'm not sure TonyHaygarth really captures the mania of the character.
He isn’t memorable at all, so I have to agree with you. He’s
no Dwight Frye. I don’t think Pleasence could have done Renfield any justice, either.
He was too old, for starters.
Don't get me wrong... Donald Pleasence is a superb actor - in some roles. If you know how to use him, if you have him in the right role, he's tremendous. He's absolutely a camp actor, and that's what makes him special.
When this one started, I was surprised to see JohnWilliams’s name come up. I mean… this is just a silly little horror movie, but…
John Freaking Williams? How the heck did that happen?
That’s not true. Dracula isn’t just a silly little
horror movie. It had a big budget. Also, Dracula hadn’t been done on the
big screen in some time. Christopher Lee’s was back in the 50s so the world was
ready for another go.
I agree that it’s not William’s best work, though. The score
is okay. It fits the movie but it's not a patch on some of the other Dracula movie scores –
especially Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I find this one a bit too… nice. I want big
entrance music when Dracula walks in. I want drama.
They say you shouldn’t notice a score, but I disagree. If
you notice it for the right reasons, it can make the film. Just look at Jaws
and Halloween. You notice those scores - and you'd notice if they weren't there. They don't work without the music. If it compliments the scene well, a score makes a movie unforgettable.
Okay, so… nothing feels familiar with this one so far. I
don’t mean that I don’t remember watching the movie (which I don’t,) but that it
doesn’t feel like a Dracula movie – and you know I know Dracula.
In some parts, I can see that. You’ve missed all the important
parts at the beginning because it starts with the ship crashing. Everything
from arriving in Transylvania, to Harker’s time at the castle… it’s such an
important part of the story that you can’t afford to miss it. I know they
probably decided to cut it to make the film shorter, but it doesn’t matter how
long a film is if you’ve done it right. People will stay and watch it. Bram
Stoker’s Dracula is, what, over two hours? And audiences don’t care.
(Well, ones who like the movie, anyway...)
Starting the movie aboard the Demeter was an interesting choice. It’s quite a gory scene, which lets you know immediately that you’re watching a horror movie – which is kind of ironic because I would definitely rate this one a romance. For me, it’s closer to Bram Stoker’s Dracula than most of its contemporaries.
This one is definitely meant to be a romance, not a horror. Just
look at these posters… In the posters for the earlier movies, Dracula is always
looming. Not so with this one. He’s just standing in the background. There’s no
menace, just a girl.
Right. So, I said before that nothing feels familiar and
I’m sticking with that. I mean… who are these characters? The names and relations
are all wrong. I’m having a bit of trouble following the story because my brain
is trying to match the people in the movie with the people in the book and I
just can’t do it.
It’s an absolute mess. I don’t understand why these
film companies take liberties with characters in this way. Dracula does
it all the time, with Mina and Lucy being the worst. If people haven’t read the
book, they’ve probably seen at least half a different film versions so you have
to think that audiences know what they’re watching is wrong.
Look at it like this: If you remade Harry Potter but
decided to swap Hermione and Cho Chang’s characters, how do you think fans
would react? They’d be understandably confused and annoyed – so why is it
always okay to make these changes to Dracula?
It's really, really not. I wish they wouldn't.
The feeling of oh-this-is-all-wrong doesn’t stop with the
character names or who’s marrying who. It’s strange to see a motorcar in a
Dracula film. I know, technically, you could have had cars on the scene
– the timeframes just about work out – but it just kind of… I don’t know,
grates, I suppose. When I think Dracula, I think crowded busy streets and the
clatter of carriage wheels over cobblestone.
The car thing actually fits this movie better than, say, Universal’s
1931 version, if you think about it. There’s only one car in this one, but
there are loads in Lugosi’s. It would make sense for there to be a
single car in any given area at that time.
The thing that annoys me more is the candid photo. You would
never have a candid photo at that time. You would have had to sit there
for ages, stiff as a board, while someone took the photo. Candid photos like
that wouldn’t have been around until the 1920s.
One of the other things that makes the time feel a
little… off is all the bloody (bad pun, I know) snogging! You have to give any
movie a little leeway when it comes to historical accuracy because if they were
all 100% accurate, they’d be boring as hell, but unmarried people making out in
public in the 19th century would have been scandalous. (Not
to mention all the sneaking around together at night!)
It happened. It always did – but it wouldn’t haven’t been
that obvious. Hell, I got told off for kissing a girlfriend in the
street once and that was 1980-something!
You should have seen how many detentions I got in high school for PDAs...
I think it’s pretty obvious that the 1970 Dracula was meant to be a romance and I’m totally here for it. Of all the adaptations, it’s probably my third favourite because of the romance. Plus, Frank Langella has serious Eric McCormack vibes going on. I totally would have had a crush on him if I’d been around in 1979!
Yeah, he was a handsome man. He’s got dead eyes, though,
which gives him a cruel look. It’s more apparent now that he’s older, I think.
Langella is definitely a different kind of Dracula. He’s
dashing and romantic, which is fine for a romance like this, but he’s nowhere
near frightening enough to compete with the likes of Christopher Lee’s Dracula.
It’s impossible to talk about Dracula without
mentioning the elaborate sets, especially Carfax Abbey. They’re Hammer Horror
worthy, (even though the movie doesn’t really have much going in the way of
horror.)
The sets are very good. Better than Hammer, I’d say. You can
tell they spared no expense with the sets and the costumes. It’s like with Seward’s
top hat, which I know bugged you because it’s so ugly.
The top hat was a major status symbol at the time. The
bigger it was, the more important you were. Of course someone like a doctor
would have wanted people to know he was worthy of that big hat. In London at
the time, it got ridiculous with the sizes of people’s top hats.
It feels even more appropriate in Dracula because Pleasence is playing Seward and it's even more like him to flaunt that status.
Very apropos. (And very, very ugly.)
The movie is very atmospheric. Like all vampire
movies (literally all vampire movies,) there are buckets of fog but there
are also plenty of great animal sounds that contribute to the overall creepiness
of the film.
You’ve got owls hooting, crows cawing, the flapping of
bats’ wings, and the howling of wolves. On top of that, there are doors
creaking and slamming – although, nothing is ever overdone.
The sound effects add a sort of… gentle creepiness to the
film. Like I said, it never gets truly scary. More of a snuggle-into-your-date kind of creepy.
This Dracula was never meant to be an out and out
horror, of course, so I think that’s spot on. I was glad it was a one-off but
it wasn’t a waste of time.
I’m looking at Dracula framed in the window here and I
have to point it out because the framing is excellent throughout the movie. Not
just the framing, but the use of shadow & light. I can’t help but think of
how effective the filming style would have been if they’d really gone done the
horror route…
They could have, very easily. It’s down to the director’s
vision but, like I said, there was obviously no expense spared. Whoever was in
charge of the cinematography had to be old school Hollywood. You can tell they
knew their craft. There’s never a moment when you can’t see what’s happening.
It’s always perfectly lit, which is important in any movie that takes place
mostly at night.
There aren’t many scary moments in this one but there are
some haunting, even heart-breaking lines, mostly from Dracula himself. “You
take the sun for granted.” “There is a grim purpose in all I do.” This isn’t a Dracula
intent on destroying; it’s a Dracula with depth, with regret. Great for people
like me who enjoy the more romantic versions. But, for people like you…?
But Dracula is a sad figure, a lonely figure. He’s lonely and he doesn’t want to be.
I didn’t like this version the first time I watched it,
which would have been back in the early 80s. I would have saved up my pocket
money, looking forward to a horror movie, and no, I wouldn’t have been
impressed at the time. Now, though, I can appreciate it more. It’s just time.
You get older and start to understand things more. As a teenager, you just want
tits and gore and monsters. Now, I can appreciate it as a well-filmed,
well-acted movie.
Because this version of Dracula is so heavily
romantic, I wasn’t expecting to laugh so much! I just wish the humour had been
intentional…
I mean… look at those bats! They had to have been
able to do better than that by 1979! So cringe.
You mean the bats on strings? It wasn’t good, was it? They didn’t have
anything better, though, did they? It would have been better to use puppets, I think.
Have the bat land, then manipulate it that way.
For a movie that was so well shot, there are some effects
that bring it down. The bat-on-a-string effect that most vampire movies seem to
resort to (with the exception of Fright Night – which is the only movie
I’ve seen do it well, is cringeworthy but there’s also the bit at the end with
the cape flying away… that’s not good either.
But the one place you expect to find humour in Dracula,
it’s disapprovingly absent. I kind of touched on the whole Donald Pleasence
v. Tony Haygarth before and, honestly, as the movie’s gone on, I’ve become more
and more convinced that the movie needed a mad-as-Donald-Pleasence-Renfield.
Haygarth definitely does not cut it. As Renfield, he’s kind of a
nonentity. In most adaptations, Renfield steals the show. In this one, he’s
just there.
I agree that Haygarth is a nonentity. If I had to recast…? There’s
Peter Sellers… no one does a better madman, but he would have been too old. Oh, I’ll tell you who would have been an ideal
Renfield… Tom Baker. With those eyes? Perfect. He was a bit tall, maybe. Even Sylvester
Mccoy would have been better than Tony Haygarth, though.
We’ve gotten to the end of Dracula now and I’ve
gotta say, I’m a little torn on this one. The way Dracula is hoisted up into
the daylight was clever – but would have been more effective if he’d caught on
fire, rather than just gotten a bit manky. I hate that Lucy ends up with
Jonathan (obviously) because of the way he backhands her during the fight.
Hell naw, sis.
Well… he was trying to save her… and she was trying
to attack him… and she was all under Dracula’s thrall…
My biggest problem with the ending is that you completely
miss out on the chase. It’s such a vital scene, culminating in Dracula’s death,
that you can’t really do the movie properly without it.
Although the historical accuracy isn’t there and it’s
obviously dated, the 1979 adaption of Dracula with Frank Langella is
definitely one of my favourites. It gives me the warm fuzzies. What do you think
of it?
The 1979 Dracula a fair instalment. It isn’t my cup
of tea as a Dracula movie, because I prefer them darker, with more horror, but I
can appreciate it. It’s beautifully filmed. The sets and costumes are
remarkable – you know they spent a fortune. The acting and casting are very
good. I’ve this adaptation of Dracula several times over the years and
I’ve enjoyed it each time – even though I didn’t enjoy it the first time.
I think I'd give it a rating of 7, which might be low considering what I said about it being my third favourite, but it does stray an awfully long way from the book.
This is probably one of the only times we've given a film the same score. It's a 7 for me as well. Although it's enjoyable, it's missing too much from the story to give it anything higher.
Wondra's Rating: 🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇
Jay's Rating: 🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇
