The Romance of Dracula; a personal Journey of the Count on celluloid

by Butler, Charles E.

  His role of Jonathan Harker was, I believe, a casting decision for Mr Reeves to go on to bigger and better things. That is precisely what has been accomplished, as the actor has had a persistent star shining on his career ever since, his biggest coup being in the phenomenally successful The Matrix series.

  Dr Seward, blood-boilingly referred to as Jack, is again portrayed by Hollywood as a figure worthy of contempt. In the Browning version, he was a dithering old man whom no-one respected. John Badham gave humour to a pompous, over-eating buffoon. In this version, played by Richard E. Grant, he becomes a fidgeting, accident-prone morphine addict, ready and willing to throw aside the Hippocratic oath for one night of passion with man-fond Lucy Westenra.

  British doctors have always been given bad press by Hollywood. In the 1940s, Nigel Bruce played Dr Watson to Basil Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes, as a loveable but bungling teddy bear, destroying the chance for any future actor to put a definitive stamp on the character. Colin Clive was a homosexual neurotic in the Universal Frankenstein movies, and, in I Am Legend (2008), it is the properly British Dr Emma Thompson - or Dr Alice Crippen - whose scientific gaffes create the concoction that destroys the world!

  Despite the notoriety that his profession seems to illicit amongst American filmmakers, Seward only gets two major scenes worthy of any note; he records the case of Renfield in his phonograph and administers sedatives and kisses to an ailing Lucy. After helping with an authentic-looking blood transfusion, he too blends into the background, wasting one of the better actors in the whole film.

  Bill Campbell and Cary Elwes have to be convincing spear-carriers, because their characters get no chances to shine at all. In some instances, their personas seem to be shared as though the writer has mixed them both together. Elwes plays Holmwood who wins the hand of Lucy in the three-way tug of war. The men themselves must be easily pleased because Lucy shows no signs as to being a competent wife and mother and constantly tries to play one off against the other every time they are in company together.

  Holmwood tells Seward to spare no expense in bringing Van Helsing into the film and is the first one to open his veins for her to replace what the Count has taken. Being tempted in the tomb, he offers a believably disgusting pout at the thing that his would-be wife has become. He screams hopelessly as he hammers in the metal spike.

  Where were the wooden stakes?

  Cary Elwes would later be seen as cameraman Fritz Wagner in the enormously entertaining Shadow of the Vampire (2000).

  We do get the impression that Bill Campbell's Quincey Morris has fantasies about Lucy on a regular basis, and he teases Holmwood verbally at every opportunity. He is the upstanding, "all man!" of Stoker's imagination. Physically, at least, as he never gets to recount any of his amazing colonial adventures, relegated instead to just standing guard on the steps of Hillingham while Dracula ravages the occupants inside. Like Holmwood, he takes delight in name-calling Van Helsing when the Professor's overacting begins to get on his nerves.

  Again, in Messrs Campbell and Elwes, another case of throwing talent away. However, the two heroes, along with Harker and Seward, do perform an impressive chase and battle sequence, eventually killing the vampire with the authentic weapons, as in the novel.

  Again, accurately, Quincey P. Morris dies in this one.

  As mentioned earlier, Dracula's three brides are played as voracious, playboy centrefolds by Monica Bellucci, Michaela Bergu and Florina Kendrick. Miss Kendrick also tutored Anthony Hopkins and Gary Oldman in the Rumanian dialect that they use in the film.

  As they languished in the bowels of the Castle with Jonathon Harker, I found myself wondering when we were going to see Hugh Hefner. Their obvious asset for decoration aside, the scene in which they tempt Mina, and unexpectedly attack a horse out of sheer frustration, is my favourite section in the entire film.

  Visually arresting but implausibly inaccurate with an interminable running time - that is my say on the matter of the Coppola movie.

  I now ask two questions:

  Why was it so successful? And why are people saying that it is the most faithful version?

  I try an educated and fairly accurate guess.

  Dracula had last been officially seen in cinemas in 1979. Frank Langella's performance, both on stage and screen, had wowed ladies across the world. By Langella's own admission, men were thanking him in the street for their extra bouts of marital passion after seeing his show. The film, as noted elsewhere, failed at the box office, possibly because audiences were still used to their image of the Count as Christopher Lee.

  As a 13 year old, I can remember myself condemning pictures of Langella that were being printed in the daily press. The film itself only sparked a mini vampire revival.

  Werner Herzog's Nosferatu the Vampyre, in the same year, did no service to the myth, save for reviving the iconic image of Graf Orlok. Producer Richard Kobritz insisted that this look should be used for his vampire king in the inventive two-parter Salem's Lot, also 1979. The two cinematic films were almost immediately lampooned by the pornographic Dracula Sucks!, which followed the 1931 Lugosi version word for word; and Stan Dragoti's Love at First Bite.

  I can still remember the impact that Stephen King's mini-series had on my local neighbourhood. A true story; the day after the television screening of the second instalment of Salem's Lot, a dog walker in my district found an exhumed body with a wooden stake driven through its chest in a local cemetery.

  Dracula had become stale. But, if Salem's Lot had the kind of power that could cause tomb desecrations, it was obvious in which way the myth would go.

  A look at Dracula's filmography in the 1980s shows that he is conspicuous because of his absence. In the 1980s, perhaps an inauguration from the John Badham film, the vampire novel received a curious upsurge of stories inventing all kinds of new, blood-sucking characters.

  The movie-going public were beginning to embrace video, tuning into all the overrated tripe utilised to sell them, like Driller Killer (1980), and I Spit On Your Grave (1981). Sam Raimi had released his inventive new film, The Evil Dead (1983), to the cinema and video simultaneously. The Exorcist (1973) also had a successful run on VHS.

  The Phillips top-loader video recorder, and rental shops with their degrading grainy blood fests, meant that the Count was pushed aside in favour of more bloody, provocative, accessible thrills. When the ‘video nasty’ ban came in 1983, I, for one, was disheartened, when I found that the censor's office had become busy trimming the more outlandish movies for home video.

  Before 1985, only a handful of vampire movies were made and these were generally cheap, throwaway tat; the vampires in them, like the films in the '50s before the Hammer shakedown, devoid of any real menace or fangs. Usually, some pseudo-scientific babble explained away the bloodletting tendencies to add extra interest. Some films were general comedies that threw in a vampire to spice up their monster list, like Saturday the 14th (1981).

  However, as video tamed and became safe, mainstream fodder, filmmakers found that they could breathe easy again. Feelers were sent out with films like The Hunger (1983), directed by Tony Scott and based on Whitley Streiber's convoluted novel of the same name. Tobe Hooper released Lifeforce (1985). Failing at the cinema, this film did well on video, not least because of its naked heroine (Mathilde May), but probably because of the nod that it gives to the Hammer tradition at the closing moments. Lee's Dracula was still doing steady rounds on television.

  In 1981, John Landis blew audiences away when he filmed what seemed to be a man changing into a wolf before our very eyes in the comedy horror picture, An American Werewolf in London. This was pipped at the cinema post by Joe Dante's The Howling (1981), in which an entire cast were transformed. The cinema had found its hook again. Prosthetic make-up artists were thrust into the limelight, and, over the next few years, would create the biggest horror icons of the modern age: Freddy Kreuger, Jason Voorhees, Pinhead and Candyman. All would cause the most unspeakable cinematic horrors to th
e whooping delight of starved fans.

  The vampire was no exception. Tom Holland's Fright Night (1985), Joel Schumaker's The Lost Boys (1987), and Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark (1987), brought us vampires that the new movie audience could relate to. Cool, savvy Jerry Dandridge, the hip motorcycle psychos of The Lost Boys and the doomed trailer trash rednecks of Near Dark, hammered further nails into the Count's coffin, and he was relegated to being upstaged by a group of clued-up American school kids in the amusing The Monster Squad (1987), directed by Fred Dekker. But, as proved by Duncan Regher's determined performance, Dracula wasn't going down without a fight, and I'll bet my last dollar that many a 12 year old had nightmares after watching him in that film.

  James V Hart's script had lain dormant in a TV studios submissions drawer for years until Winona Ryder took it to Coppola.

  Stripping it bare in executive meetings and literally re-reading the book with the cast playing their own characters, the script was tailored to fit each and everyone. Extensive PR on the film got Dracula fans licking their lips in anticipation, and people who had never heard the name Dracula, were old enough to buy a cinema ticket.

  In fact, on retrospect, I can't remember a Dracula film being played on television in the couple of years before Coppola's film was released. Not one. The only vampire diet available was being rented out at the local video store with less and less enthusiasm. This movie had a totally free house all to itself.

  The Count could be portrayed any way the filmmakers wished, because everyone had forgotten what he looked like. The only physical exposure he had at this time was being shown in broken down revivals of the Edward Gorey play, with actors playing the Count who were just happy to be in work, and no one was reading Bram Stoker's original novel.

  The only available reads in my local bookstores were the tie-in novelisation of this movie by The Dracula Tapes author Fred Saberhagen and numerous, sugar-topped, 'How we made the movie', fan magazines.

  How could Francis Ford Coppola's film not fail?

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Leslie Nielsen

  DRACULA-DEAD AND LOVING IT (1995: Columbia/Castle Rock, USA)

  Director: Mel Brooks

  Synopsis

  A bound volume titled Dracula, on a red background. As the music plays, the book projects closer as the words Dead and loving it are added. The music continues and the book is opened, whereby we are treated to engravings mostly consisting of works by Francisco Goya during his 'dark period.' Images of bats and night owls with female succubus enticing young men. Pictures from the penny dreadful, Varney the Vampyre, are also thrown into the mix.

  A title tells us that we are in:

  Transylvania, 1893.

  A coach makes its way through the Carpathians carrying three passengers, two gypsies and young solicitor Thomas Renfield. Renfield asks his travelling companion to inform the driver to go slower. As the passenger proceeds to do just that, he notices the sun going down and urges the driver to go faster. As the coach speeds up, Renfield grabs the hand ropes to steady himself and these break off in his hand.

  Farcical comedy is played out as Renfield tries to stay upright in the coach as it speeds ever onward. On reaching the obligatory inn, Renfield is violently ejected from the coach. The coach leaves him stranded and he is given warning from the locals not to go to Castle Dracula because there are bats and wolves and vampires. A gypsy woman forces him to buy a crucifix for 15 kopeks. The coach refuses to take him further and, with a tip of the hat, Renfield decides to walk.

  Scene changes as we find Renfield outside Castle Dracula. Reaching for the doorknocker, he is surprised to see it crumble in his hand. The door opens into a grand hall with a large staircase. The door closes behind him and at the top of the staircase, we see a man emerge. His shadow breaks free and floats down to Renfield. A command is given and the shadow returns. Renfield introduces himself and we see Count Dracula for the first time in a ridiculous wig.

  A bat pesters Renfield as Dracula laments,

  "Children of the Night - what a mess they make!"

  He slips on bat droppings and tumbles down the stairs. Standing up, he assures Renfield that he is unhurt. As they move out of shot, we see the Count's shadow following them in agony.

  The Count passes through a large cobweb but Renfield becomes entangled in it. Removing the wig, Dracula ushers Renfield into a large study with dusty furniture. He signs the lease for Carfax Abbey as Renfield cuts his finger sending impossible amounts of blood everywhere. The Count begins clucking and licking his lips to Renfield's wonderment as the scene fades.

  In bed, Renfield is beset by two voluptuous vampire girls who writhe all over him. They are ordered to stop by the Count and sent packing while he proceeds to make Renfield his slave. Dracula works hard trying to hypnotise Renfield who keeps falling asleep at the wrong time. He offers lives of insects if Renfield obeys him and mentions that he has chartered a ship to go to England.

  On screen, we are informed of

  The Demeter - bound for England.

  Amid the storm, Renfield, laughing maniacally, tries, unsuccessfully, to stop the coffin from being tossed around by the violent buffeting of the ship. Anchoring the coffin, he opens it as a pained Dracula mentions feasting on the first mate.

  A newspaper headline informs us:

  CORPSE OF CAPTAIN FOUND ON EMPTY VESSEL:

  Sole Survivor A Raving Maniac.

  At the Lyceum Theatre, showing Faust, we are introduced to Mina Seward, Jonathon Harker, Lucy Westenra and Dr Seward. Dracula tries hypnosis on a forgetful usher, to give a message to Dr Seward. He decides to tell him himself as the usher breaks up his introduction by quickly remembering.

  Dracula introduces himself to the gathering again and begins to flirt with Lucy and Mina. Lucy is taken with him, but Mina finds him strange and 'otherworldly'. At Carfax, the Count steps onto the terrace and watches Lucy undress for bed. He changes into a bat as Lucy closes her window. Dracula slams into the glass and falls out of sight. Recovering himself, he climbs into the room. A knock on the door as Jonathon and Seward investigate strange noises.

  Looking around Lucy's room, they don't notice Dracula clinging to the ceiling. Lucy's door won't shut and Seward promises to give it a good slam. He does and the Count lands in a heap on the floor. Recovering himself again, he

  moves towards the bed and seduces the sleeping girl with bared fangs and muffled sucking sounds.

  At the sanatorium, a man laments through Renfield's feeding hole that he has to get out of here. He is a guard who is rebuked by the orderly, Martin. Renfield is to have tea with Dr Seward. The next scenes show Renfield and Seward at the table with Renfield trying to hide the fact that he is feeding on insects and spiders. Seward spots a grasshopper in his mouth and Renfield becomes manic. Seward tells Martin to put Renfield in a straitjacket and then give him an enema.

  Meanwhile, Mina wakes Lucy, who can't stand the sunlight and claims to have had horrid dreams. She feels drained and small bite marks are found on her neck. A confounded Dr Seward says he will contact his old friend, Abraham Van Helsing.

  A plaque informs us that we are entering the London hospital where we find Dr Van Helsing performing an 'owtopsy' for the new students. He opens the body and begins passing round various organs as the students faint in disgust. The final student stays strong until the Professor smashes the corpse's skull open and hands him the brain. A maid enters with a telegram for the Professor and congratulates him on all the unconscious students.

  Cut to Dracula waking in the daytime. He takes a stroll in a sunlit park amidst relaxing couples and is offered wine and chicken from their picnic. Renfield enters and points out the fact that he is starting to burn up under the sun’s rays. The Count wakes properly in his coffin and admits to having had a daymare.

  Noticing three marks on Lucy's neck, Van Helsing cleans his monocle. He immediately suspects that a vampire is involved and asks Seward if he has any books on the occult. Back in Carfax, the Count rise
s upright from his coffin and bangs his head on a low-hanging chandelier. Lucy has been moved to Seward's sanatorium and Van Helsing has strewn her bedroom with garlic. The Count tries to enter and cries his disgust. He visits Renfield in his cell. Releasing the maniac, he sends him into Lucy's bedroom to remove the garlic flowers. Renfield can't resist peeking under the covers as Lucy sleeps. She wakes and they both scream. Renfield is carted off back to his cell with the promise of another enema.