There are no mentions of the absences of Mrs S and Mrs V H.
Dracula doesn't cast a reflection in a mirror and smashes a large wall decoration to smithereens in one of his few outbursts in the film. Unfortunately, when Van Helsing tracks his daughter's corpse to an underground mine, the first glimpse we see of her is as a reflection in a stagnant pool of water. To confuse us further, in the scene where Van Helsing reveals Mina to be the vampire, he shows his proof by holding a mirror to her face in which she casts no reflection!
Again convention is toyed with as Dracula, trapped in his lair in the daytime, seems to become stronger than he is in the evening. He sets fire to Harker's wooden crucifix with a single glare and his ability to transform into a bat isn't affected by the daylight hours. And yet, not two scenes previously, Dracula, confronting Van Helsing at midnight, was sent kicking and screaming with his tails between his legs over the matter of a little garlic and a patchwork designed crucifix.
In the final scene, Dracula seems stronger still, when he is rudely wakened from his slumber by Van Helsing and Harker. He tosses them around physically and, when he is hoisted into the air, we notice that it is again bright daylight.
"Sacrilege!” screams Langella.
Oh, absolutely.
From his first appearance, washed up on shore like Lemuel Gulliver, to thrashing in the air wildly from his impalement on a large hook, raging unintelligible blasphemies at the rising sun, Frank Langella's Dracula dominates the film, every scene a tribute to his enthusiastic approach. His Dracula enjoys toying with these mere mortals and we believe his lines about observing humanity to its fullest, sharing
"Its lives, its loves, its death".
He is high on personal ego, not needing any undead brides cluttering up his cellars. This Dracula believes that he can have any woman that he desires without having to worry about running short of supplies. The world is his for the taking and he means to have it. When he speaks of leading soldiers into battle, however, that becomes another matter. The script, and Langella's general appearance, make him a poet more than a fighter of crusades.
When confronted by Harker and Van Helsing, I got the impression of irate family members attacking an overpowering suitor to their daughter/sister, who had inadvertently blurted out that she is expecting his baby, but he won't be around to see the child grow up. In fact, it is this theme of constant amusement of the human race that carries Dracula throughout the entire film. He taunts Harker by accepting a dancing lesson from Lucy and then further buries the knife by having Harker deliver his letter inviting Lucy to dinner as a thank you for the previous evening's entertainment.
"Obviously, you won't be able to join us", he states with added emphasis. Harker huffs in reply and walks off.
Dracula then proceeds to ravage both girls, coupling ecstatically and promising them that they will become as he is, feeding on them - the humans - and making more of their kind. He describes a vision of himself and Lucy cutting a swathe of death through humanity, she to be his ideal mate.
Is he experimenting, then? His last attempt, Mina Van Helsing, turned into a decrepit, shambling hag, shunning society and sunlight by chilling out in a neglected mineshaft with sewer rats being her only companions. But, Lucy believes him, even to the extent of trying to stop her protectors from destroying him. She even shares a crate with him on their way to the coast.
Dracula has already stated that in the daytime he only needs a few hours sleep and then all he has to do before nightfall is to remain in the dark. Does he waste those precious hours in the crate? Yet another snub for Jonathon who has to follow him to Scarborough on foot for another ten miles?
According to Renfield, Dracula has also promised him great things, though this is never shown to us, and he dismisses the man as worthless later in the film.
Langella, who connives and corrupts with relish, had, like Bela Lugosi before him, played the role in a 1977 revival of the Balderston play on the Broadway stage. The actor's performance is also identifiable as probably being influential in the stories of Anne Rice in her The Vampire Chronicles. Although this film is left open for the inevitable sequel - it is a Universal picture after all - it never materialised.
Langella has since appeared in many diverse roles in the preceding years since Dracula and even revived the role for cable television in 1982; but, unlike Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee, he doesn't seem to have suffered the finality of typecasting, a favourite role being the demonic book collector Boris Balkan in Roman Polanski's The Ninth Gate (1999).
Casting the world's greatest actor, Sir Laurence Olivier, as Abraham Van Helsing, underlines the importance placed on the character by our American cousins. On viewing the film for this book however, I have to say that I was very disappointed. This isn't a condemnation of his abilities as an amazing stage and screen presence for sixty years. One of his final characters was the disturbing study of Nazi POW, Rudolph Hess, in Wild Geese II (1985), laid alone in squalor in Spandau waiting for Edward Fox and comrades to rescue him. A character that doesn't need to exert himself to any degree, but to emote solely with his eyes and line deliveries.
Van Helsing however is another matter entirely. Peter Cushing's dynamic portrayal of the character, particularly in the fairytale, The Brides of Dracula (1960), had set the benchmark for all subsequent actors. The Professor in this version is no exception and it is obvious to all and sundry that a double is being used for much of the time. Olivier is just too old to meet many of the scripts demands.
He does interact well with Lucy in the churchyard sequence, teasing her like a playful grandfather with his knowledge of the undead. He is also tidy, opening the Count's shirt so that he won't get blood all over it when he stakes him. But, when confronting Dracula with a shrub of garlic, he looks like he's ready for a nap even before Dracula begins to hypnotise him - I have to admit, I was ready for nodding off with him. In some cases, he absently recites a script that he obviously couldn't care less about.
The fact that he was going to denounce the film at the time of shooting leads me, on viewing it again, to think that he may have had other, more important reasons than the character's correct recital of a Dutch prayer in mind; i.e. he hated the whole process. He isn't great, wonderful or amazing in this film. Sadly, he is just a frail, old man doing his best with what he has to work with.
More upbeat is the casting of perennial horror favourite Donald Pleasance as Dr Jack Seward, the funniest interpretation yet to be equalled in my opinion. Seward is a quack of the first order. Prescribing laudanum to his patients like it has gone out of fashion and slapping Mina's face in panic because of his own impotent abilities to cure her. On viewing the puncture marks in her throat, he describes them as:
"small, but definitely not wholesome"- after she has expired.
Then there is the scene where he’s berating a post office stenographer when sending the news of Mina's death to Van Helsing: "Not lied, died!", whilst shovelling peanuts into his mouth. And again, eating voraciously when describing Mina's death in company to their ultimate disgust.
Even on patrol with Van Helsing, he sits nonchalantly popping peppermints into his mouth without reflecting on the fact that the Professor could be savagely murdered without warning. Indeed, Mina has already fastened on her father when Seward arrives in the nick of time and accidentally stakes her. How this bumbling buffoon ever reached the eminence to own a seaside sanatorium is a mystery that is never explained. But Pleasance acts it out, as he did throughout his career, with his tongue firmly in his cheek and takes the acting honours in the supporting cast with little or no effort.
Pleasance's wild-eyed psychopaths and fidgeting grave-robbers grace many movies. He was Michael Reeves' original choice for his Witchfinder General (1968) - the role went to Vincent Price. He also turned in the definitive performance of Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the 007 outing, You only Live Twice (1967).
Today he is best remembered for his portrayal of the paranoid-driven Sam Loomis in John C
arpenter's original Halloween series, a role turned down by Christopher Lee. His next vampire outing would be in the kiddie-orientated The Monster Club (1980), as leader of vampire-hunting troupe, the dreaded Bleeney, who finds himself on the run from his own colleagues after a vampire outwits him with a stake-proof vest and turns him into a creature of the night.
The fact that Badham's film stands up to repeated showings on television and video is probably down to the conclusion that it is peopled with famous British talent of the small screen at the time. Trevor Eve would go on to success as radio private eye Eddie Shoestring. As Harker in this film, however, he brings little to the role. One wonders how this sniveling coward ever made the grade to solicitor. He has the role of the damsel in distress, constantly shouting for assistance when overcome by difficulties and becoming a sulking baby when his fiancée looks at anyone else.
Lucy, Kate Nelligan, is very quickly led down the garden path by the Count, but fails to find the real man that is described by Stoker and previous film versions - interestingly describing Dracula as the saddest one of all! What she eventually realises is that her choices are indeed limited. Dracula, for all his extraordinary powers and charisma, is a great lover, but too self satisfied.
A smug dandy idling away a few hours with her for his own amusement. It is obvious that he will abandon her immediately after her change in search of new conquests. Harker is a pathetic, jealous little boy who will need constant mothering. When she tells the Count, "I came of my own accord", I detected more than a subtle double entendre by the scriptwriter. Kate Nelligan would appear as Jack Nicholson's unfaithful wife in Mike Nichol's take on the werewolf legend, Wolf (1994).
Finally, Jan Francis and Tony Haygarth, as Mina Van Helsing and Milo Renfield, respectively. Francis, who would play Penny in the phenomenally successful Just Good Friends sitcom with Paul Nicholas, has limited screen time but makes good use of it, at least as good as the script will allow. As Mina, she is naive to a fault and convulses wonderfully in her death scene with a strained gurgling sound. As the vampire, she provides the film with its only scary moment, when she sneaks upon her father frantically scrabbling in the mud for his dropped crucifix.
Tony Haygarth played opposite Paul Greenwood in BBC's Rosie, and holds many more small screen credits. His Renfield is a joy as he slaveringly dreams of owning a sleek, playful kitten or champions the exploitation of the common working man with cries of "I'm not a bloody machine!", when dragging the Count's coffins into Carfax. He wins our sympathy as he pleads for his life at the Count's hands. It's a good turn even though his original ownership of Carfax Abbey seems a mystery - how can he afford it? Did he win it on a wager?
Sharp eyes will also spot Sylvester McCoy, a children's TV favourite and the seventh incarnation of the time traveller, Dr Who.
In retrospect, however, casting small screen thespians, regardless of their unquestionable talents and professionalism, could also have helped indirectly to cause the film to flop at the box-office, especially considering the sugar-coated roles that their fans were used to.
Jan Francis developing body warts? Gruesome!
But a further plus for the film is the fact that we see Dracula take on all the forms that he uses in the novel. He escapes from the ship as a ravening wolf and attacks Harker as a pipistrelle bat. He suspends himself from a tree in the form of a fruit bat to observe Renfield attacking Jonathon Harker, and then glides under Lucy's door as a billowing mist. The most impressive sequences, however, are the much-quoted wall crawling depictions. But at the end of it all you come away like the film’s characters at the start and the finish of the movie - totally lost at sea.
"I love to be frightened", says Lucy, shivering deliciously.
Unfortunately, Mr Badham, so do we.
CHAPTER TEN
Klaus Kinski
NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE (1979:Werner Herzog Filmproduktion/Gaumont/Twentieth Century Fox, West Germany/France) aka: Nosferatu-Phantom der Nacht, Dracula
Director: Werner Herzog
Synopsis
The camera lingers on rows of mummified corpses in a cavern. On the soundtrack a beating heart accompanies a haunting score as the titles come up. A bat flies in slow motion across the screen.
Lucy, sits up in bed and screams and is comforted by her husband, Jonathon Harker. She warns of the coming of something horrible. More credits are superimposed over two kittens playing with a locket that holds hair and a picture of Lucy. At breakfast, Harker leaves for work. He tips his hat to other commuters.
Renfield tells him of a letter from a Count Dracula, who wishes to buy a house in the area. It involves a large commission. Maybe the house near Harker? He must go straight away to close the deal. Lucy informs him that she has an awful feeling of dread and fear. She discusses these fears at length on a beach with Harker, imploring him not to go. Leaving her with the Hardings, Jonathon takes off.
The next couple of scenes follow his trail on horseback to a gypsy camp by the inn. The gypsies are told to go home by the innkeeper who takes Jonathon inside. Awaiting his meal, Jonathon announces that he must waste no more time as he has to be at the Castle Dracula. The innkeeper informs him that at midnight all sorts of evil spirits are let loose and that people disappear never to be seen again. The gypsies hold testimony to this.
Through an interpreter at the camp, the gypsies inform Jonathon that there is no castle except in the imagination. Back at the inn, Jonathon is splattered with holy water and given a rosary and a book on vampires by the innkeeper's wife. Jonathon reads that the curse of Nosferatu will last till the end of time.
The following day, Jonathon tries to obtain a coach, but the driver tells him that he doesn't own a coach or horses while tending to his own rig. Jonathon decides to walk. The haunting soundtrack begins again as we see mist rising from vast mountains. More heavy mists as Harker rests. A darkening sky. Castle Dracula is silhouetted. Passing streams of violent eddies, Harker ascends the mountains. A coach pulls up alongside him and he boards it.
Disembarking in the courtyard of Castle Dracula, he sees a door open and there stands the Count. Introductions are made and the Count ushers him into the Castle. At a dining table, he shows the Count papers and house plans. The Count pours wine excusing himself that he doesn't partake of anything at midnight. He watches Harker. A wolf howls as Dracula informs that
"The children of the night make their music".
As he reads the papers to the house, the clock strikes midnight. Harker cuts his thumb and the Count insists on treating the wound. Harker dismisses the offer of help and the Count makes a grab and sucks at the blood, claiming that Harker could have blood poisoning. This brings a change to the Count as he violently backs Harker towards a chair. Harker sits as the Count reverts back to his old self and says that Harker can talk for a while as there are many hours before dawn. At dawn, the Count states that he is away for long periods. Harker falls asleep.
Lucy wakes as a bat crawls around her window, hanging from the curtains. We are shown food prepared on a table as Jonathon awakes. There is no sign of Dracula. Searching the Castle, he finds a room containing his belongings. Checking himself in a mirror, he notices puncture wounds in his throat. A child scratches music on a violin in the courtyard. The Castle is outlined against the sky.
We see Lucy walking across the beach lost in thought.
Harker sits down in his room and writes in his diary as there is no postal service. He writes of bad dreams that he hopes will pass and that the Castle seems to be part of those dreams. Everything is unreal. At night, Dracula informs him that he has lived for centuries and that time is an abyss. Dracula signs the lease to the property and notices the locket with Lucy's picture, complimenting her on her lovely throat.
A wind on the soundtrack as Harker reads more from the book of vampires that states the existence of the seed of Belial and the coming of the plague. Midnight tolls and Dracula appears at Harker's door. He approaches him on the bed. Lucy is sleepwalking and fai
nts in Harding's arms.
She begins panicking on the bed calling her husband's name. Dracula seems to hear as he stops feeding on the prone Jonathon. Lucy relaxes and falls asleep. Dr Van Helsing puts her behaviour down to a sudden fever.
Harker starts awake the next day and begins to search the Castle. Finding nothing but locked doors, he becomes frustrated. Emerging in the courtyard, he finds the door to a cellar vault. In a stone sarcophagus, he sees the body of the Count shielded from the day. He flees. We next see Dracula loading his coffins onto a horse and cart and pulling out of the courtyard.
The Romance of Dracula; a personal Journey of the Count on celluloid Page 14
