This cheap international production of Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula" is poorly conceived and poorly made in most ways, but it does have the draw of featuring two actors who played the titular role in other, better films, and is, thus, interesting for comparison. Christopher Lee had already played Dracula in the 1958 Hammer production and would continue to appear in the role in the studio's sequels. He again plays the Count here. Klaus Kinski would later play Dracula in Werner Herzog's remake of "Nosferatu" in 1979, and here he plays Renfield.
Although championed as faithful to the book, as an adaptation, this "Dracula" features some bad deviations from Stoker's tale and in other ways is a poor imitation of prior "Dracula" films—especially the 1958 Hammer one. Although it adopts the gore and blood splatter from Hammer, it's, overall, a tamer version, and there's very little sex appeal here as opposed to some of the Hammer productions. This film also steals from the 1958 film the part where the Count lures Mina away, but adopts from the 1931 Universal picture the scenes of Dracula prowling the streets and entering a theatre. This stuff is absent from Stoker's original. Also absent from the book is Van Helsing's weird stroke, which in this film leaves him wheelchair bound and stuck at home with Mina while Quincy and Jonathan go to Transylvania. Also, in the final scenes, a fire motif is invented, with Van Helsing making a makeshift, fiery cross to ward off Dracula, and the Count is climactically burned to death in his coffin.
There's a laughable scene involving taxidermic animals supposedly coming to life to threaten our heroes, some obvious dummy boulders in the climax, and the film makes the head-scratching mistake of trying to pass off docile German Shepherds as wolves. The fake bat gimmickry is far more tolerable by comparison. Overall, the main stylistic theme of director Franco's movie is an abundant reliance on zoom-ins.
Lee and Kinski can't save this dull and ill-advised mess, but their characterizations are of some interest. Kinski as Renfield seems too true to art imitating life, as the actor really had been committed to a psychiatric hospital in years past, and his continued abnormal behavior was evidenced in his frequent-director Herzog's documentary "My Best Fiend" (1999). Unlike other portrayals of Renfield, Kinski plays him comatose, with occasional screaming and violent outbursts, including jumping out a window and choking Mina. Kinski's later stilted Nosferatu isn't that far removed from his Renfield, really, except his Dracula talks more and breaths heavier. Meanwhile, Lee got the opportunity to play a Count that is a somewhat closer approximation of Stoker's characterization than his Hammer iterations, although he still manages to play him mostly mute after his castle scenes. His mustached appearance and white-to- black hair transformation is closer to Stoker's description, too, than his wild-eyed sex beast in the '58 shocker.
The final embarrassment is that the filmmakers of a documentary, "Cuadecuc vampire" (1971), of the making of this film, made a better movie.
The next year, Franco made a looser, Sapphic Dracula adaptation, appropriately titled "Vampyros Lesbos" (1971).
(Mirror Note: Contrary to the novel, Dracula has a wall mirror in his castle, which, for further inexplicable reasons, he points to in a scene with Jonathan—revealing to him his lack of a reflection. Although also contrary to the novel, a shadow disappearance shot is handled better later in the film.)
Although championed as faithful to the book, as an adaptation, this "Dracula" features some bad deviations from Stoker's tale and in other ways is a poor imitation of prior "Dracula" films—especially the 1958 Hammer one. Although it adopts the gore and blood splatter from Hammer, it's, overall, a tamer version, and there's very little sex appeal here as opposed to some of the Hammer productions. This film also steals from the 1958 film the part where the Count lures Mina away, but adopts from the 1931 Universal picture the scenes of Dracula prowling the streets and entering a theatre. This stuff is absent from Stoker's original. Also absent from the book is Van Helsing's weird stroke, which in this film leaves him wheelchair bound and stuck at home with Mina while Quincy and Jonathan go to Transylvania. Also, in the final scenes, a fire motif is invented, with Van Helsing making a makeshift, fiery cross to ward off Dracula, and the Count is climactically burned to death in his coffin.
There's a laughable scene involving taxidermic animals supposedly coming to life to threaten our heroes, some obvious dummy boulders in the climax, and the film makes the head-scratching mistake of trying to pass off docile German Shepherds as wolves. The fake bat gimmickry is far more tolerable by comparison. Overall, the main stylistic theme of director Franco's movie is an abundant reliance on zoom-ins.
Lee and Kinski can't save this dull and ill-advised mess, but their characterizations are of some interest. Kinski as Renfield seems too true to art imitating life, as the actor really had been committed to a psychiatric hospital in years past, and his continued abnormal behavior was evidenced in his frequent-director Herzog's documentary "My Best Fiend" (1999). Unlike other portrayals of Renfield, Kinski plays him comatose, with occasional screaming and violent outbursts, including jumping out a window and choking Mina. Kinski's later stilted Nosferatu isn't that far removed from his Renfield, really, except his Dracula talks more and breaths heavier. Meanwhile, Lee got the opportunity to play a Count that is a somewhat closer approximation of Stoker's characterization than his Hammer iterations, although he still manages to play him mostly mute after his castle scenes. His mustached appearance and white-to- black hair transformation is closer to Stoker's description, too, than his wild-eyed sex beast in the '58 shocker.
The final embarrassment is that the filmmakers of a documentary, "Cuadecuc vampire" (1971), of the making of this film, made a better movie.
The next year, Franco made a looser, Sapphic Dracula adaptation, appropriately titled "Vampyros Lesbos" (1971).
(Mirror Note: Contrary to the novel, Dracula has a wall mirror in his castle, which, for further inexplicable reasons, he points to in a scene with Jonathan—revealing to him his lack of a reflection. Although also contrary to the novel, a shadow disappearance shot is handled better later in the film.)