Vampire Flicks: Bram Stoker's Dracula (Dan Curtis' Dracula) (1974)

In the spring of 2005, around the time I was graduating from high school, there was a series of specials, narrated by Adam West, on Bravo called Ultimate Super Heroes, Super Vixens, and Super Villains. Each acted as a list of twenty examples of each archetype, and while the first two consisted mostly of comic book characters, the latter had a bit more variety, discussing many movie characters like Chucky, Freddy Krueger, Hannibal Lecter, the various James Bond villains (all grouped together in one slot), and Darth Vader, whom they chose as number one. Early on the list, at number 19, was Dracula, and, as expected, they mostly talked about the original Bela Lugosi film, as well as briefly touched on the Hammer movies. After that, they mentioned how, in the years since, a number of other actors have played Dracula, like Frank Langella and Gary Oldman, whom I already knew. But they also mentioned and showed an image of Jack Palance, which was when I first learned there was a movie where he played the Count. Somewhere along the way, I learned that it was a TV movie, directed by Dark Shadows creator Dan Curtis, but that was it, until I stumbled across the old MPI DVD at McKay's many years later. It was really cheap, so I figured I had nothing to lose and picked it up, and upon watching it, I found it to be a pretty average adaptation; having re-watched it a couple of times since, my opinion hasn't changed. I think Palance is fine, with some standout moments, but nothing special overall, and while I think Nigel Davenport makes for a fairly good Dr. Van Helsing, none of the other actors do much for me. The art direction is really good, as is the location work, the movie does have some moments of atmosphere, and it not only seems to take much inspiration from past adaptations but has itself proved surprisingly influential on future ones. But, overall, it's very standard, with some instances of rather underwhelming direction and editing, and the limitations of its TV movie budget are often painfully clear.

(While the movie is now commonly called Dan Curtis' Dracula in order to differentiate it from other adaptations, particularly the Francis Ford Coppola one, its actual onscreen title is Bram Stoker's Dracula, so I followed suit.)

May, 1897. Real estate solicitor Jonathan Harker arrives in Bistritz, Hungary, and is given a letter at an inn from his prospective client, Count Dracula. He reads that, the following morning, he will be brought to Bukovina, and at Borgo Pass, will be met by a coach that will bring him to Castle Dracula. Following a day-long ride, Harker arrives at Borgo Pass come nightfall, and then experiences a rough, harrowing ride to the castle. Upon arriving, he meets the Count, who looks through some photographs of potential properties in England and decides upon the old, dilapidated house known as Carfax Abbey. He also shows a keen interest in a photograph of Harker's fiancee, Mina Murray, her friend, Lucy Westenra, and Lucy's fiance, Arthur Holmwood. After keeping Harker up all night in conversation, Dracula tells him to write to his employer and say that he will stay at the castle for a month. He locks him in his room, and the solicitor ends up sleeping until the following evening. It doesn't take him long to realize he's a prisoner. In trying to escape his room, Harker later finds a hidden staircase that leads to a study on the castle's top floor. There, he finds a newspaper clipping containing a copy of his own framed picture, one where Lucy is circled; a coffin lying on a mantle; and a painting depicting Vlad Tepes, a 15th Century Romanian prince, whose likeness is that of Dracula's, while a woman in the painting looks like Lucy. He's then confronted and attacked by Dracula's vampire brides, but the Count stops them, saying he still has use for Harker. He orders him to write to both his employer and fiancee, saying he will spend some more time in Europe. Once he does, Dracula knocks him unconscious. The next day, Harker manages to escape his room and make his way down to the cellar. He finds boxes of earth, as well as a coffin that Dracula is resting in. Harker is then knocked unconscious by one of Dracula's gypsy servants, and is later preyed upon by the brides. Five weeks later, Dracula has arrived in Whitby, England via the Russian schooner, the Demeter, and begins feeding on Lucy at her home in Hillingham each night. Arthur Holmwood calls in Dr. Van Helsing, a family friend, to help. Realizing there is a vampire in the vicinity, Van Helsing takes steps to protect Lucy, but Dracula, who sees her as the possible reincarnation of his beloved wife when he was alive, will not be denied.

This is the first time I've ever reviewed anything by Dan Curtis, a guy who I think was quite talented. I haven't seen it in a long time, but I do remember regularly watching Dark Shadows when it was reran on Sci-Fi Channel in the early 2000's. I also really like Trilogy of Terror, and Burnt Offerings, a nice haunted house movie he did with Oliver Reed and Karen Black. By the time he did Dracula, Curtis was quite well-known to fans of horror television, not only because of Dark Shadows, as well as its two theatrical tie-ins, but also for producing The Night Stalker and directing The Night Strangler, the two movies that spawned the series, Kolchak: The Night Stalker. In fact, this film was part of a sort of series of television adaptations of classic Gothic horror stories he was involved with in one way or another, such as 1968's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a 1973 film of Frankenstein, and an adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray that same year (Dracula and an adaptation of The Turn of the Screw were the only ones of these that Curtis actually directed). The screenplay was the work of another well-known name among genre fans: Richard Matheson, who worked with Curtis quite frequently. He'd already written both The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler, and would go on to collaborate with Curtis on Scream of the Wolf, Trilogy of Terror, Dead of Night, and, years later, Trilogy of Terror II.

Jack Palance had already starred in Curtis' production of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, so it wasn't too surprising that he was chosen to play Dracula. In his brief interview on the MPI DVD, Curtis goes as far as to boldly claim, "Jack is the best Dracula there ever was. He was the most frightening Dracula that ever put on that cape." I... do not agree with that sentiment at all. I think Palance made for a decent Dracula, and he's certainly better than a number of other actors I could name, like Zandor Vorkov in Dracula vs. Frankenstein, John Forbes-Robertson in The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, Richard Roxburgh in Van Helsing, or even Gary Oldman, as I've always found his performance in that movie to be way too theatrical. And make no mistake, I'd much rather watch this than Jess Franco's Count Dracula, which not even Lee could save, or yesterday's item with Paul Naschy (and yeah, I'd say Palance is better than him). But, that said, I don't think Palance has a patch on Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee (who, I've heard, did praise Palance's performance), and I might also say that I enjoy John Carradine's Dracula more. The reason is, while Palance does have a presence about him, and is fairly intense at points, as he tended to be, I don't find him to be as eerie and seductive as Lugosi, or as flat-out terrifying as Lee. That said, like Lee during the beginning of the first Hammer Dracula, when Jonathan Harker arrives at his castle, Palance gives off the air of a gracious enough host, but it's clearly a facade. He's obviously going through the motions when acting accommodating to his guest, and actually comes off as rather impatient and intent on getting on with what needs to be done, especially the preparations for his move to England. When Harker first arrives and Dracula bids him welcome, he promptly walks back inside before Harker can finish talking. Then, when Harker mentions, as he's settling down to dinner, that he has some photographs of possible properties, Dracula insists, politely but firmly, on seeing them immediately. He doesn't wait long before letting the mask slip, either. After keeping Harker up all night, engaged in conversation about the history of his people, he tells him to write to his employer, Hawkins, and say that he will remain there for a month or so, before locking him in his room. He does so again the following night, this time barely able to contain his true nature when he sees that Harker has cut himself while shaving. And the next time we see Dracula, he drops all pretense and lets loose his monstrous side.

There's one scene where Palance comes close to matching the feral, animalistic quality of Lee, when he storms in on his brides as they're attacking Harker in his study and snarls, "How dare you touch him, any of you!". He flings them aside, yelling, "I wanted you to wait!", then grabs Harker by the front of his shirt and growls, "Until I... finish with him." Dragging Harker back to his room, Dracula orders him to write the letters to both Hawkins and his fiancee. Once he's done so, Dracula tells him, "Now I 

go to England. And you...", then picks him up by the throat and tosses him aside, knocking him out. But after that, even though we see Dracula use both his power and ingenuity to get to Lucy while she's being guarded, fight off a number of people inside a Whitby hotel, and furiously smash up a crypt and a room in Carfax Abbey after Dr. Van Helsing and Holmwood have interfered with him, Palance never again feels as frightening or ferocious as Lee, especially as he was in his first two Dracula movies. And similarly, despite the, well done, shots of him wandering outside 

Lucy's home or the cemetery at night, he's never as eerie as Lugosi (I do really like that shot of him standing beside the beached wreckage of the Demeter). But, all that said, Palance does wear that cape and costume nicely, has a pretty good physical presence, thanks to his being over six feet tall, and he's also able to maintain his dignity when he talks with those fangs in his mouth. In fact, after the first act in Transylvania, he doesn't say much, which works in his favor. And when he's particularly enraged or anguished, he lets out some inhuman roars and howls that are rather startling. 

Something else I do appreciate about this Dracula is that he's smart. He brings ten boxes of earth with him to England, taking nine of them to Carfax Abbey, while keeping the tenth hidden elsewhere so he's not caught unaware at the abbey. He was planning on hiding the others in various other spots, but Van Helsing and Holmwood destroy them before he can do so. Even before he arrives in England, he proves to be not so helpless when in his coffin. When Harker finds him resting down in the castle cellar, he tries to

stab him in the head with a shovel, only for Dracula, who's looking up at him, to merely turn his head out of the way, causing Harker to miss. Before he can try again, he's then incapacitated by one of Dracula's servants. While in England, Dracula, in order to get around Van Helsing and Holmwood when they're guarding Lucy, first uses his hypnotic powers to make them fall asleep, before drawing Lucy outside to him. Then, after they've responded by using stimulants to keep themselves awake while guarding her, Dracula handles that by breaking a wolf out of the nearby  

Scarborough Zoo and sending it into the house to attack Holmwood, while he then goes for Lucy in her bedroom. And when he finds that all of the boxes of have been destroyed, Dracula proves that he knows when to fold them and heads back to Transylvania.

The film's most notable addition to the story of Dracula was the idea of making him more sympathetic, adding a backstory where he had a wife while he was human, which we see in some vague, dream-like visions. It's not revealed what exactly happened but his wife, Marianne, died, absolutely devastating him, with one flashback showing that he had to be restrained at her deathbed. Thus, when he sees Lucy's picture, who looks just like Marianne, he's determined to go to England and claim her, seeming

to think she's her reincarnation. And, you know what? As much as I typically don't like it when they try to make Dracula sympathetic, I think Palance is actually at his best when playing this part of the character. Dan Curtis said that he and Richard Matheson came up with this subplot because he felt, in the original novel, Dracula didn't have enough of a motivation to travel from Transylvania to England (he actually did but Curtis flat out says in his interview that, for him, Dracula having sucked his homeland dry wasn't enough of one). He also freely admitted that it was 

akin to the story of Barnabas Collins and Josette in Dark Shadows, but they did manage to make it work, and it has since been used in a number of adaptations since, particularly the Coppola movie. And yet, ironically, despite how much it was expanded upon there, or how other movies, like the 1979 one with Frank Langella, delved more into the notion of Dracula being a pitiable character, I find it more effective here, where it's only slightly alluded to.

Even before this plot-point is introduced, there is a weary, melancholic feeling about Dracula, like in the scene where he tells Harker he's interested in Carfax because of how old his family is, adding, "To live in a new house would distress me," (one of various lines taken from the book). Also, when he has the first flashback to his wife while forcing Harker to write the letters, Palance does a good job of conveying the sadness he feels over the memory, as you see just how happy he and his wife were. Thus, when he draws 

Lucy to him outside of her house that first time, he's clearly quite happy to be with her, and even calls her Marianne. And I must say, the scene where he finds that she's been staked down in the crypt is rather moving, thanks to both Palance's distraught and completely shattered performance, and the accompanying flashback to his wife's death, getting across how he feels, centuries later, he's lost her all over again. That grief is then followed by the rage he feels over this, prompting him to angrily destroy the crypt, then seek revenge by forcing Mina to drink his 

own blood, which will lead her to gradually become both his eternal companion and slave (however, as I'll get into, that doesn't amount to much of anything in the long run). And when Dracula is finally killed at the end by Van Helsing, his expression seems like one of gratitude to finally be free from this miserable, lonely existence.

While yesterday's movie did do it first, this film was the first actual adaptation of the original novel to make the fictional Dracula and Vlad Tepes, aka Vlad the Impaler, one and the same. While only suggested in the original Bram Stoker novel, further adaptations, like the Coppola film, have also used it, with varying degrees of success. Like the subplot of his lost love, this is only vaguely hinted at, with Harker, and later Van Helsing and Holmwood, finding a portrait of Dracula in his human identity in the hidden study. 

Moreover, at the end, after Dracula has been fatally staked, the camera pushes in on that painting, as you hear the sound of troops cheering his name, and a final text crawl that reads, "In the 15th Century, in the area of Hungary known as Transylvania, there lived a nobleman so fierce in battle that his troops gave him the name Dracula, which means 'devil.' Soldier, statesman, alchemist and warrior, so powerful a man was he that it was claimed he succeeded in overcoming even physical death. To this day, it has yet to be disproven." Again, the Coppola movie would greatly expand on this, yet I find it to be more effective here, where it's only alluded to (though it is expounded on more than it was in Count Dracula's Great Love).

Dracula never becomes a bat, but he otherwise has most of his classic abilities, like hypnosis, which he's able to impose upon people even from a distance, and great strength, as he's more than capable of tossing people around. He also seems to have control over animals, such as the wolf he releases from the zoo. As per usual, he and the other vampires he creates are repelled by crosses and garlic, have to lie in their grave during the day (although Dracula is seen lying in a coffin with no earth in it), and can be killed

through staking. Sunlight only seems to weaken them, as Van Helsing and Holmwood use it to make Dracula more vulnerable so Van Helsing is able to impale him with a spear, and his body doesn't disintegrate from it like in a number of other movies..

Like the first Hammer Dracula, it initially seems like Jonathan Harker (Murray Brown) is going to be our protagonist, as the first act follows his journey to Castle Dracula, his meeting the Count, who promptly imprisons him, and his attempts to escape. The only major difference is, in that movie, Harker was himself a vampire hunter, working with Dr. Van Helsing, and had come to destroy Dracula, whereas here, like in the book, he's simply a real estate solicitor who has no idea what he's getting into. Otherwise, the same basic series of events plays out. Upon arriving, Harker has an initially pleasant meeting with Dracula, but quickly finds himself held against his will, with the Count forcing him to write to both his employer and fiancee, and say he plans to spend at least a month there. After being locked in his room, sleeping away the entire following day, and another, more unnerving encounter with Dracula, Harker realizes he's in trouble. After finding a hidden staircase that leads up to an old study on the top floor, he sees the portrait of Dracula in his human guise as Vlad Tepes, and also notes how the woman in the portrait looks like Lucy. He's then attacked by Dracula's three brides, but the Count intervenes and makes them leave Harker alone, as he still has use for him. Now having even more of a grasp of what he's up against, Harker writes the letters, after which Dracula knocks him unconscious. The next day, he does show some bravery, as he escapes his room by climbing out the window, using the vines growing on the castle's side, and gets back inside on a lower floor. He makes his way down to the cellar, where he finds Dracula resting in a coffin filled with soil. He attempts to kill the Count right then and there, but is knocked unconscious by one of his gypsy servants. When he awakens, he's attacked by the brides again, and this time, there's no hope for him. Harker reappears briefly during the third act when, now a vampire himself, he savagely attacks Van Helsing and Holmwood as they search the castle. However, he doesn't last long, as he gets knocked into a pit filled with spikes.

Again, like the first Hammer film, after that first act, Dr. Van Helsing and Arthur Holmwood become the protagonists from here on out. Simon Ward, who was one of the protagonists in the Hammer movie, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, has the pretty thankless role here of Holmwood. When his fiancee, Lucy Westenra, becomes increasingly ill and the doctor is unable to explain why, he brings in Van Helsing for a second opinion. Initially, Holmwood finds himself confused and frustrated by Van Helsing's unorthodox methods, such as hanging up garlic flowers around Lucy, and his refusal to explain what he thinks is going on. The two of them stay up all night to make sure that Lucy doesn't sleepwalk, as she has in the past, but Dracula uses his hypnotic power to cause Holmwood to fall asleep during his watch. When he and Van Helsing wake up the next morning, they find Lucy underneath a tree, having lost a lot of blood to Dracula. After Van Helsing performs a transfusion, he tells Holmwood that he thinks Lucy is being attacked by a vampire. Naturally, Holmwood doesn't believe him, but he continues going along with his methods, which, after three nights, do restore Lucy's health. Van Helsing then leaves, and Holmwood promises to keep up the routine they've been using, but Dracula uses the wolf he frees from the Scarborough Zoo to attack him. Despite being badly mauled, he does manage to kill the wolf with a gun, but passes out afterward, allowing Dracula to get to Lucy one more time, causing her to die. It's only when, the night after her funeral, when she reappears at the house as a vampire and attempts to bite him, does Holmwood finally realize Van Helsing was right. After Lucy is staked, Holmwood has little to do than act as the doctor's assistant, helping him track down Dracula's hiding place and pursue him back to Transylvania.

He's no Peter Cushing, but like I said in the introduction, Nigel Davenport does make for a good Dr. Van Helsing, giving off an air of authority and confidence in his methods. Having already arrived at Lucy's home in Hillingham and examined her by the time the second act begins, he has an idea of what may be happening, but decides not to tell Arthur Holmwood until he's sure (he does, not so reassuringly tell him, "If the cause of your fiancee's affliction is what I think it is, then beside it, the most venomous serpent in the world would seem a plaything for children,"). Hanging up garlic flowers around Lucy and crucifixes around the windows, he intends for him and Holmwood to watch over her all night to make sure she doesn't sleepwalk. But when that proves not to be enough and Dracula gets to her anyway, Van Helsing, after giving Lucy a transfusion, tells Holmwood what he thinks is going on, describing what a vampire is and how to protect someone from it. Holmwood, of course, is incredulous about this, and when he asks Van Helsing how he could believe such a thing, he simply answers, "Because I have lived long enough to accept what is, whether science agrees with it or not." Continuing with his plan, he produces stimulants to keep the both of them awake through the night. When Lucy's health begins to improve, Van Helsing leaves, planning to hunt down and kill the vampire when he returns, and tells Holmwood to continue the procedure. But, when Lucy dies anyway, Van Helsing then shows up in time to drive her away with a cross, and bring Holmwood to her tomb, where she's sleeping in her coffin. Having now thoroughly convinced him of the truth, Van Helsing stakes Lucy, and then prepares to search for the main vampire. He actually gets a clue as to Dracula's possible whereabouts from Mina Murray. When he suggests that she and Lucy's mother take a trip to Whitby for a few days, he decides to tell her the truth as well. And she, in turn, tells him of the Demeter and how it contained several boxes of earth, which, of course, would be the vampire's makeshift grave.

While Lucy and Mrs. Westenra stay at the George Hotel in Whitby, Van Helsing and Holmwood try to track down the boxes, learning from the Coast Guard that there were ten of them, but nine were picked up and delivered, whereas the other is unaccounted for. This is where they first hear the name of Dracula, and after visiting three different shipping companies, learn that the boxes were delivered to Carfax Abbey. When Holmwood notes how close that place is to Lucy's home, he and Van Helsing head out there. They don't

find Dracula, but they do find the nine boxes of earth, which they destroy. They then go back to the hotel to pick up the women, only to learn about Dracula's rampage there and that the women were sent back home. By the time Van Helsing and Holmwood make it to Hillingham, they find Dracula preparing to prey on Mina. Van Helsing pulls out a crucifix and orders him to get away him from Mina, but then, when Dracula, in turn, orders him to get rid of the cross, he, for whatever reason, does so (if it's supposed to be

because Dracula used his hypnotic influence to make him, it sure doesn't come across that way)! Then, he, Holmwood, and Mrs. Westenra stand by and watch Dracula fuse his blood with Mina's, before just letting him walk out of there. Using traditional hypnosis, Van Helsing tries to make use of Mina's blood bond with Dracula to find where he hid the tenth box of earth. Instead, he learns that the Count is leaving England on a ship, making Van Helsing curse himself for being so hasty in destroying the other boxes. However, Mina is, again, able to help when she says

that Dracula was the man whom Harker went to see in Transylvania. Now knowing where he's going, the three of them take a train, with Van Helsing and Holmwood intending to reach the castle before Dracula does. They're successful at this, and manage to stake his vampire brides, as well as kill the now vampiric Harker, before finally facing Dracula himself. Fittingly, it's Van Helsing who subdues and fatally impales him, while Holmwood mostly just comes close to getting strangled.

Sad to say, but the women are the ones who have the most thankless roles, by far. Though significant in that she serves as Dracula's motivation for coming to England, as she's possibly the reincarnation of his wife, Lucy (Fiona Lewis) has little to do other than lie in bed and be preyed upon by Dracula. Despite her fear of what's happening, both times that it happens, she's clearly enthralled by being with him, especially in that first scene, where he draws her outside and they make out before he bites her neck, which she 

also seems to enjoy. She's also fairly effective when, after her death, she reappears to Holmwood as a vampire and tries to bite his neck. But other than that, there's sadly very little to say about Lucy, as they completely remove the subplot of her preying on children before she's stopped. It's even worse for her mother (Pamela Brown), who twice proves to be utterly useless when things get serious. When the wolf breaks into the house and attacks Holmwood, Mrs. Westenra does nothing but watch, then slumps down into a chair and passes out! The same goes for when Dracula appears at the house and breaks his way into the bedroom in order to get at Mina. Mrs. Westenra literally just sits by and lets him go for her (not that Van Helsing and Holmwood are much better in that scene). 

Finally, while Mina (Penelope Horner) does arrive at Hillingham at the beginning of the second act, you're likely to forget she's there until she comes in to see Lucy after her first onscreen encounter with Dracula, as there's little sign of her beforehand. Even after Lucy has died, resurrected, and been staked, Mina not only shows no grief for her friend but role remains very minimal. She does manage to give Van Helsing some vital clues, first by telling him of the Demeter, then, under hypnosis, that Dracula is leaving England, and when she hears his name, that he's heading to Transylvania, but that's her sole significance in the story. You'd think that Dracula tainting her with his own blood out of revenge for their killing Lucy would become a major plot-point, especially how, as they're on the train to Transylvania, Mina says she can feel that she's starting to lose her humanity, and asks Van Helsing to do what she did to Lucy if they don't find Dracula. But no, not really. Even though Van Helsing and Holmwood take her with them so she can tell them where Dracula is, they leave her at an inn while they head to the castle. Granted, they do try to use her bond to trick him into thinking they're going back to England the next day, but since he finds them at the castle, it didn't seem to work. The last time we see Mina, she's so close to becoming a vampire herself that she can't touch a crucifix without it burning her. Naturally, we can assume, with Dracula's death, that she's freed from his influence, but it would've been nice to see it, if only in like a brief cutaway.

I have rather mixed feelings about the direction and cinematography. On the plus side, when watched in high-definition, the movie does look good, coming off as quite polished, even though, being a TV movie, it probably didn't have that big of a budget. Dan Curtis also distinguishes the flashbacks to Dracula's past by giving them a slightly ethereal, dreamlike look and feel, with the only sound being either the music score or, when he discovers that Lucy has been staked, Dracula's anguished roars. Curtis also comes up with some very nicely composed shots, particularly of

Dracula himself, like at the very beginning, when you see him storming through his castle and out the front door; him standing beside the beached Demeter, which starts on a shot of the dead captain, tied to the wheel and holding a crucifix in his left hand, then comes around to his side to reveal Dracula standing on the sand, beside one of his boxes of earth, in the background, before zooming in on him; various nighttime shots of Dracula, like when he's standing in Lucy's window, walking through the graveyard, or standing at the top of the stairs in Lucy's crypt; and 

during the climax, when he's framed in front of the windows as the sunlight pours in. In fact, the best examples of shot composition here come at the very end, when Dracula is speared through a table in the sunlight. First, there's a montage made up of closer and closer shots of Van Helsing from Dracula's POV, as he stands in front of the window, the sunlight diffusing within the camera lens right over his shoulder, and drives the spear completely through him, inter-cut with a gradual push-in on Dracula's 

face, as blood gushes out of his mouth, before he finally dies. Second, the movie's final shot starts on a wide one of Dracula's body impaled body, on the face of a long table that's turned on its side. After Van Helsing and Holmwood leave, the camera slowly pans towards Dracula, until the portrait of him as Vlad Tepes is right behind him, in the background, and you hear the sounds of soldiers cheering him on. Besides just being a great-looking final shot, there's some nice thematic significance, as Dracula has literally been impaled in front of an image of his historical counterpart, Vlad the Impaler.

The movie is also not without atmosphere, opening on an eerie, nighttime shot of a misty lake, then panning over to Castle Dracula's reflection in the water, and moving up to reveal the castle itself. The same also goes for some moments during Jonathan Harker's journey to the castle, and that aforementioned shot of the Demeter's dead captain, with Dracula standing on the beach in the background, which might be the most atmospheric image in the entire movie. And, as much as I tend to complain about day-for-night cinematography, I will say that here, it does give

some of the nighttime exteriors an otherworldly feeling. However, that only goes so far, as a lot of it is still so obvious and can hurt your ability to believe those scenes are taking place at night. Something that I talked about in my review of The Fearless Vampire Killers but is much more egregious here is how all of the "wolves" are obviously just German shepherds. Like I said in that review, it's not uncommon to see old vampire movies trying to pass normal dogs off as wolves, but here, not only does it hurt some early

shots of them running towards Castle Dracula (I swear, you can see some of the dogs' collars there), but they repeatedly get right up on the one that Dracula releases from the zoo, so it's so obvious. And, while he doesn't do it nearly as much, or as poorly, as Jess Franco did in Count Dracula, Curtis does sometimes suddenly zoom the camera in, which inherently gives off a feeling of cheapness, as well as make it so obvious that is an early 70's TV movie.

As much as I complain about how day-for-night shots never fool anybody, I tend to be even more aggravated when you can't tell what time of day a scene is taking place in, and that's definitely the case with the timeline of the movie's climax. When Van Helsing and Holmwood arrive at the castle, it's late in the day, and after they've staked Dracula's brides in the cellar, a nicely atmospheric and beautiful exterior shot shows that the sun is setting. But, shortly afterward, when they confront Dracula in his study, they, as I've said, defeat him by yanking down the

window drapes down and weakening him to where Van Helsing is able to spear him. The sunlight that streams through is so bright that it looks like either mid-morning or mid-afternoon, suggesting that Van Helsing and Holmwood were searching around the castle all night. As big as the castle is, it shouldn't take that long to search. And if that's the case, why didn't Dracula ever attack them while it was nighttime?

But my biggest issue with the direction, as well as the editing, comes in the more "exciting" scenes. When the wolf breaks through the window and attacks Holmwood, the build up to it is executed well, and the actual window crash is so sudden that it may actually cause you to jump. But when the wolf mauls Holmwood, it's not as exciting as it should be. The problem is that it's not edited in a manner that's quick enough to thrill you, and the way Mrs. Westenra reacts by watching the attack, before just slumping down in a chair and passing out, doesn't help, nor 

does the weak music. Then, when Holmwood manages to grab his discarded gun and shoot the wolf, it immediately cuts to Dracula standing in the shattered window, as he comes in, seduces, and feeds on Lucy again. When this happens, it suddenly gets completely quiet, and there's no sign at all of Holmwood and Mrs. Westenra, so I first thought that this was probably taking place in another room. But the aftermath proves it wasn't, as Holmwood gets up right at the foot of Lucy's bed, and her mother is 

slumped in a chair right next to him. Also, the cut from the wolf attack was so sudden that there was no indication that Holmwood had even passed out. All the more confusing is how it then suddenly cuts from Lucy preparing for Dracula's bite to the servants knocking on the door and yelling, by which point Dracula has already left, and Holmwood is just coming to. The editing is similarly jarring in other spots, like when it abruptly cuts to Harker first realizing that Dracula has locked him in his room, to

him waking up the following evening and realizing he slept through the whole day, and going from Van Helsing proving to Holmwood that Lucy is now a vampire by showing her resting in her crypt, to him suddenly staking her.

In a similar vein, the sequence where Dracula, after being spotted trying to get into Mina and Mrs. Westenra's room at the George Hotel in Whitby, fights off a bunch of people who try to stop him, doesn't have the effect it's clearly supposed to. Not only is it because of lackluster editing, but the set-up and direction also come off as feeble, with the blows that Dracula delivers to his attackers having no force or impact behind them, and vice versa. The lack of any strong sound effects is a big factor, but what's more is that the action feels slow and stilted, even though

Dracula is grabbing people by the throat, throwing them into each other, sending one man out a second story window, and knocking another over a stair railing. The scene afterward, where Dracula enters the house at Hillingham and makes his way up to the second floor to get at Mina is a bit better, with Mrs. Westenra's servant shooting at him with a pistol, and Dracula chasing Mina back to her room and breaking through the door, but not by much. And, again,

speaking of bad direction, there is no clear reason why, when they come upon Dracula preying on Mina back at Hillingham, Van Helsing and Holmwood allow him to make her drink his blood. If it is meant to be a case of him using his hypnotic influence to keep them at bay, the movie does nothing to get that across.

Going back to the pros, the movie really excels in its location photography and art direction. The exterior scenes in Transylvania were actually shot in the former Yugoslavia, with Trakoscan Castle serving as Castle Dracula. This location, with its thick forests, extensive mountain ranges, and big, wide fields, makes for some very atmospheric nighttime shots of the countryside during both the opening and Jonathan Harker's journey to the castle, while, at the same time, the traveling shots of it during the daytime are very picturesque and lovely. We get a couple of interiors

here, like the modest but comfortable inn in Bistritz where Harker spends the night at the beginning, and the similar place where Van Helsing and Holmwood leave Mina during the third act, but the interiors of Castle Dracula itself are the most noteworthy. While the exteriors are clearly that of a very old building, the interiors take another page from Hammer's Dracula, as they're, for the most part, well-maintained and inviting, rather than the ancient, rundown state which they're often depicted as, both in the original novel and past film versions. There are

two particularly significant rooms, one of which is Harker's guest room. Quite comfortable and nice, it's made up of two sections: a very lovely sitting area, with an elegant table, chairs, a fireplace, and many old paintings adorning the walls, and the bedroom, with an old-fashioned bed with a canopy. But as nice as it is, it soon proves to be a prison for Harker, with Dracula locking a door in a small section connected to both halves of the room. While trying to find a way to escape, Harker finds, in that same section, a door 

hidden behind a drape, which opens up into a dark, dusty cobweb-infested section of the castle with a staircase. The stairs go up three floors, leading to a dark corridor at the top, lined with drapes, candelabras, and suits of armor (all of the armor you see in the castle hale from the era of Vlad Tepes). It eventually leads to a big study that doesn't seem like it's been used in years, due to the layers of dust and the very thick cobwebs (and yet, Harker feels comfortable with drinking from a bottle he finds on 

the table). Notably, this room contains the portrait of Vlad Tepes, with a coffin on the mantle beneath it, a music box on the table that plays a tune which becomes a leitmotif for Dracula's lost love, and it's where Harker is first confronted by the brides, as well as Dracula meets his end at the hands of Van Helsing. And finally, there's the castle's catacomb cellars, housing both Dracula's actual resting place and that of his brides, and also contains both an iron maiden and a pit filled with spikes.

The section of the story that's set in England was actually filmed there, with the lovely fields of Harefield Grove in Buckinghamshire serving as the grounds of Lucy's home in Hillingham. The interiors of said home are the kind of well-furnished, elegant, high-class Victorian era setting you'd expect to see in an adaptation of Dracula. The same goes for the interiors of the George Hotel in Whitby, as well as the many town exteriors and offices you see during Van Helsing and Holmwood's search for Dracula, and the train station where Mina first arrives in Whitby. The 

exterior of Carfax Abbey is that of Oakley Court, a location well known to Hammer fans, as it was used in exterior shots of so many of those movies, and its interiors are, as Harker told the Count, old and in a state of disrepair, and actually feel like an expansion of that one hidden area of the castle. In the center of the abbey is a large space with a raised landing circling the walls, and a big storage area for the boxes of earth that Dracula brought with him from the Demeter. Speaking of which, we only see the 

Demeter that one time, at the start of the second act, but as you've already seen, it makes for an eerie, wonderfully Gothic visual. And finally, the church, the graveyard, and the crypt where Lucy is kept after she's killed are all appropriately gloomy, with the first shot of the former being in a depressing downpour, while the graveyard looks quite atmospheric during the nighttime scene where you see Dracula walking through it.

Again, I can never help but just gush when a movie delves as much into the Gothic as this one does. I love those touches of not only the period-accurate sets, costumes, and vehicles like the horse-drawn carriages and trains, but also the classic elements of graveyards, spooky forests, and the interiors of both Castle Dracula and Carfax Abbey, with all the cobwebs, long dark hallways and stairways, and decorations like, in the castle, the paintings, the suits of armor, and the iron maiden. It makes me think back to when I was a kid and loved Halloween and anything creepy or

supernatural. If I have one qualm about the art direction, however, it's in the brief flashbacks to Dracula's human past. The only real set there is the bedroom for when Marianne had died but, still, both it and the costumes look like they're from the same time period as the main story, despite it supposedly being back in the 15th Century (the sole exceptions are the suits of armor worn by the men who have to restrain the grief-stricken Dracula). Like I said, they're brief, so it's not a big deal, but it is noticeable.

One thing that may shock you when you watch this is how it's surprisingly bloody for a 1970's TV movie. While you don't see anything whenever the vampires are staked (their screams are pretty disturbing, regardless), you do see a nasty close-up of Dracula slicing open his chest before forcing Mina to drink his blood, a shot of the vampire Jonathan Harker impaled on the spikes at the bottom of that pit down in the cellar (you can also see the skeletons of past victims impaled down there), and when Van Helsing forces the spear all the way through Dracula, a fair amount

of blood spews out of his mouth. Also, when the wolf attacks Holmwood, he gets badly mauled, ending up with a lot of bloody bite and scratch marks, and the bite marks that Dracula leaves on Lucy's neck are fairly bloody, while the makeup they put on her to make her look dead in one shot can make your skin crawl. The same also goes for the scene near the end where Mina, becoming increasingly defiled by Dracula's influence, touches a cross pendant, only for it to leave an ugly burn mark on the palm of her hand.

The visual that makes me wince the most, however, is actually the most innocuous one, which is when Harker nicks himself while shaving, leaving a realistic-looking cut that nearly arouses Dracula's bloodlust. Anybody who's ever cut themselves while shaving, as I often have, will know what I mean when they see that image. All of these more gruesome moments were shot for a European theatrical release, which has since become the version that's most often released on home media.

As we've talked about, like the more well known Francis Ford Coppola movie, this, despite its official title, does tend to deviate from the original novel. It is, again, very similar to the first Hammer Dracula in how it streamlines the novel's large scale story, as it bypasses the section onboard the Demeter, completely eliminates the characters of Renfield, Dr. Seward (the character is in the Hammer film, but only in a couple of scenes and is completely ineffectual), and Quincey Morris (that character is almost always omitted, and even when he's not, he's rarely portrayed accurately;

the one major exception in that regard is, funnily enough, the Coppola movie), also gets rid of Harker early on, allowing Dr. Van Helsing and Arthur Holmwood to become the protagonists for the second and third acts, and climaxes with a final confrontation with Dracula at his castle. What's more, as per usual in film, Dracula is susceptible to sunlight, despite that not being the case in the book, and he doesn't become progressively younger the more he feeds on blood. And again, the subplot with his lost love is the biggest departure from the book. All that said, though, the

movie is actually closer to the source material than the Coppola, mostly because it doesn't spend so much time on Dracula's backstory or the idea that a character here may be the reincarnation of his lost love. Not only does it follow the same basic sequence of events, but the characters who are here do mostly serve the same functions as they're counterparts in the book, specifically Van Helsing, Holmwood, Lucy, and Mina. They even make use of a handful of lines from the book, albeit often slightly rewritten, such as, 

"Welcome to my house. Enter freely, and of your own will," "I pray you, be seated and eat. Excuse me that I do not join you, but I have dined already," "When the Magyar, the Avar, the Lombard, the Turk poured his thousands across our frontier, we always drove them back," and so on.

One thing I can safely say that this movie improves upon from the original novel is the ending. When I first read it, I found the ending, where the protagonists intercept the wagon transporting Dracula's coffin and kill him right then and there, to be very anticlimactic. Here, as in the first Hammer film, Van Helsing and Holmwood reach Castle Dracula, which they enter through the cellar. There, they find Dracula's vampire brides sleeping in their coffins and Van Helsing promptly stakes them. They also run into Harker, now a vampire himself, and 

Holmwood knocks him into the spiked pit. They later find their way up to the old study, where they're confronted by Dracula himself. But, while it is better than what's in the book, this final confrontation isn't much of a battle. When Dracula first attempts to come at them, Holmwood repels him with a crucifix, and he repeatedly writhes back and forth, unable to get close to them, as they circle around the table. Finally, he overturns it, knocking them to the floor and causing Holmwood to drop the cross. He then tosses the table out of his way, grabs Van Helsing off the floor, and 

throws him into a suit of armor. Before Holmwood can get a hold of the cross again, Dracula grabs him, slams him down onto another table, and tries to strangle him. That's when Van Helsing, in another nod to the Hammer film, rips down one of the window drapes, letting in the sunlight. Dracula tries to flee, but finds himself cornered by the sunlight, with Van Helsing ripping down another drape, while Holmwood throws down the coffin on the mantle beneath the painting when he tries to seek shelter in 

it. With the sun weakening him, he leans against the table, which is now resting on its side, and Van Helsing grabs a spear that was knocked loose from the suit of armor and kills Dracula by impaling him through the heart, pushing the spear completely through until it comes out the other side of the table.

Ultimately, TV budget limitations and some poor direction and editing aside, the biggest reason why this Dracula isn't that much to write home about is because it's so standard that it's likely to get lost in the shuffle of other adaptations. As much as it did bring something new to the table with the "lost love" subplot and the idea of making Dracula more sympathetic, more people are, unfortunately, likely to credit that to the Coppola movie or even the 1979 Frank Langella one. Other than Jack Palance, there's nothing else that's truly memorable about it and, 

while Palance's performance is decent, he's neither as iconic as Bela Lugosi or as memorably frightening as Christopher Lee. And finally, even by this point, there was little more that filmmakers could do in adapting Dracula that hadn't already been done, so much of this one, even the stuff that I do compliment, has a feeling of "been there, done that." When you've seen as many Dracula movies as I have, another one has to do something really special in order to make itself distinct, in either a good or bad way, and this doesn't have much of anything to offer in that regard.

The music score was by Bob Cobert, who worked frequently with Dan Curtis, most notably in that he came up with the score for Dark Shadows, as well as its two feature film tie-ins. As with that show, his score for Dracula is similarly theatrical and anything but subtle, and in this case, not the best music you could hope for. It does have some memorable themes, most notably the tinkling music box melody that becomes a leitmotif for Dracula's lost love (and which also plays over the ending credits, which I don't think works to the movie's advantage), as well as a tragic theme for the scene when Dracula discovers that Lucy has been staked, and a military march for the ending, as the camera zooms in on his portrait and you hear his soldiers shouting his name. Also, the traveling music for Jonathan Harker's journey to the castle at the beginning is okay, but nothing special. Other than that, though, the score's attempts to be scary, atmospheric, or thrilling don't come off, as the music is old-fashioned, a bit overdone, and, sometimes, even cartoonish in how it sounds.

While a fair enough movie, Dan Curtis' Dracula is far from one of the greatest adaptations of this story. It does have a fine performance from Jack Palance as Dracula and Nigel Davenport as Dr. Van Helsing, some good instances of atmosphere, great location work and art direction, some fair amount of blood, and it proves fairly successful at making Dracula sympathetic without going overboard with it, as well as manages to be fairly true to its source material, all things considered. But, none of the other characters are that memorable, with the women especially getting the short end of the stick; some sequences that are supposed to be thrilling instead come off as weak due to bad direction and editing; the music score is so-so; and ultimately, the movie doesn't have much to distinguish itself from the myriad of other Dracula movies that have been made. If you're a fan of Dark Shadows, Dan Curtis, or Jack Palance, I would say this is worth a watch, but don't expect one of the best Dracula adaptations ever.