Wordiezett So much average

Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Jakoba True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Cineanalyst Among others, Lyndon W. Joslin, author of "Count Dracula Goes to the Movies: Stoker's Novel Adapted," has called this the most faithful adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula." Since reading Stoker's book, I've been following in Joslin's footsteps in viewing a bunch of Dracula movies, and while I agree that this BBC TV movie is probably the most loyal to the story, I don't think that's very important. Perhaps, fidelity would be more appreciated by someone who hasn't read the novel or lacks the imagination to provide illustrations in their mind to the book, for what's the point otherwise of the cheap imagery and cheesy special effects a 1977 TV movie provides, or the condensing of both the story and its themes sill necessary for a two-and-half-hours runtime. Besides, it seems contradictory to be faithful to a novel that's in part about the horror of Lucy and Mina being turned unfaithful to their suitors by Dracula.The best parts of this TV "Count Dracula" are ancillary to Stoker's tale. Moreover, the best movie adaptations of "Dracula" aren't the most faithful. "Nosferatu" (1922) almost entirely deviates from Stoker after its scenes at Castle Dracula, and it wasn't exceptionally true to its source to begin with. Importantly, however, it reworks the themes of the original into something new with a focus on naturalism and associating vampirism with the plague instead of the book's connections overtly to religion and subtextually to sex and venereal disease. Likewise, the 1931 Bela Lugosi version, while suffering from the staginess of adapting the theatrical versions, as well as the book, gave us the iconic performance of the titular role, which has continued its influence since, including here in Louis Jourdan's suave vamp, which is contrary to Stoker's description. "Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary" (2002) is an episodic ballet, but it nails the sexual and xenophobic implications of Stoker's tale. Even the numerous movie adaptations that turn the gothic horror into a romance, at least, tried. (At first, when the credits called this movie "a gothic romance," I feared more of the same, but fortunately that claim was misleading.)Turning Lucy and Mina into sisters and combining two of Lucy's suitors into one is minor and common practice in screen adaptations of what is a long-winded novel, and none of that harms the important stuff. More unfortunate is the condensing of Mina's role in organizing and leading the pursuit and destruction of Dracula. This time, at least, she spies for the side of humanity rather than for Dracula, as she did in the 1958 Hammer, 1979 Frank Langella and 1992 Francis Ford Coppola versions. Part of the reason for this condensing is because it abandons Stoker's epistolary structure, as does most adaptations (although some, such as "Nosferatu," somewhat incorporate it in a different guise). In the novel, Mina put the diaries, letters and phonograph records of the group together--becoming something of the author's surrogate within the story--to help solve how to defeat Dracula. For this, she used her skills with shorthand and a typewriter, which this TV version only alludes to in its original and unnecessary opening scene of Jonathan's departure. Mina also risked her life by maintaining her psychic connection with the Count, to track his whereabouts--part of which, as aforementioned, remains in this iteration. The books commentary on the "new woman," as usual, is entirely axed.The best part of this "faithful" adaptation involve its added emphasis on Dracula as the Antichrist. Jourdan's vamp explains this point in his confrontation with Van Helsing--describing his victims as his disciples and as analogous to the Church's proselytizing. The cross-shaped light over Jourdan's eyes also recall Karl Freund's highlighting of Lugosi's eyes, which made him appear so menacing in the 1931 film. This bit of reworking to the good-and-evil duality inherit in the novel also helps to expand Renfield's character, who we can now understand to be a man struggling with his soul, including by saving Mina's, while dying at the hands of the failed conversion to Dracula's vampiric cult.Other alterations to the novel are less interesting, though. Dracula seeing Jonathan's picture of Mina and/or Lucy while during his castle stay is a device that has been carried over in many adaptations since at least the 1922 "Nosferatu." And the movie seems to have gotten a little carried away by making its combination of two of Lucy's suitors mostly in line with the Texan by changing the finale to a Western-style shoot-'em-up. The final shot of the characters praying is also potentially laughable as they ignore Quincy lying against a tree, presumably bleeding out from his gunshot wound. But, hey, for all of its awkward TV staging, including that double take of Van Helsing and Seward entering Mina's room, and cheap and otherwise distracting effects, they, at least, got real bats and a wolf, which is more than can be said for some other adaptations.(Mirror Note: As Joslin has pointed out, the scene where Dracula tosses Jonathan's shaving mirror, which displays the Count's lack of a reflection, out a window is partly faithful to the novel and partly in the vein of the suave vamp tradition, as Jourdan's Dracula does this with considerably more charm than Stoker's Count. And, due to the small TV budget, there are also some continuity errors in the mirror-reflection visual effects.)

can_i_give_up_now It was good, don't get me wrong - in fact this is the most accurate adaption of Stoker's narrative that has ever been made - but honestly, I found it a bit campy and it was rather slow moving.When watching this film, I had to constantly remind myself that it was made in 1977 by the BBC, so the effects weren't going to be great; the sets were going to be made of rubber and cardboard and that sort of thing, but I found that I was easily pulled out of the movie and was constantly reminded that I was watching something fictitious.When I'm reading the novel, it's extremely easy for me to get sucked in and almost believe that what I'm reading is actually going on. When the book ends, so does the illusion, but while I'm reading the book, everything presented to me is done realistically.This film, however accurate it may be, doesn't do that for me. I honestly laughed out loud when I first saw Dracula bouncing down the side of his Castle because in the novel, he's described as going out in a "lizard-fashion" which would imply a sort of jerky, yet speedy crawling motion (see 'Chapter 3, May 12 Entry: Later' to read what I'm talking about). It's things like this that make it hard for me to give this a full 10 out of 10 stars.Overall, a good film, though if you're looking for something with a little more action and a little more bang, I'd recommend the Coppola version of the film, especially if you're not quite as concerned about the faithfulness to Stoker's original.

wparlette It is near perfection. The acting along with the eerie music make this a movie to remember as I have since a child. As I mentioned up top in the summary, the silly looking bat props are a serious flaw but otherwise there is nothing to fault. In fact, the effects that are used are quite good despite being simple(mist, negative film images, etc.) I just finished watching it a short while ago after 30 years. Without trying to sound cliché, it was like reliving a memory. Now that I have it on DVD I can go back again and again...at least until I get sick of it. I note there are other reviewers who also, as I do, can't figure out why this movie didn't have more staying power than it did.

theowinthrop 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.