Dracula (1931)

[alkytrio666]

Originally posted by hollywoodgothiq
Disagree if you must. But the facts don't support your assertions.

Yes, having Harker not recognize the Count changes the story. I've already said the material was distorted in translation to film.

But having Hutter/Harker recognize Orlock is not a plot point in NOSFERATU, either. The film abandons the plot progression of having the Van Helsing character identify the vampire and teach the young men how to defeat him; the Nina character figures it out and does it for them.

Admittedly, the Harker character in the 1931 DRACULA is pretty useless, but the Hutter/Harker character in NOSFERATU is just about completely passive.

So would it be fair, then, to say that neither Nosferatu nor Dracula '31 were anywhere close to the novel?

[hollywoodgothiq]

No, it would not.

It would be fair to say that neither one makes use of the relatively small plot point of having Harker recognize the Count back in London.

But the 1931 DRACULA is a cliff notes version of the book, with elements of the play thrown in. The essential differnce between the film and the book is that Dracula does not lurk in the shadows; he is openly invited into the polite society that he is preying on.

This is a pretty major divergence, to be sure. But the important plot points remain in common: an Englishman goes to Transylvania to seel some property to the Count; the Count travels to England by boat, killing everyone on board; in England he preys upon a girl named Lucy, who dies and becomes a vampire; Dracula sets his sights upon Mina, Jonathan Harker's fiancee, as his next victim, but Harker and Dr. Seward receive help from Professor Van Helsing, who identifies Dracula as the culprit; Dracula kills his fly-eating assistant Renfield; and then...the comparison ends because Universal ran out of money and couldn't afford to film the chase back to Transylvania.

Admittedly, my plot summary is filled with broad generalizations so that the words will suit the book and the film equally. If you look at specific details, they are quite different. But then you get into the philosophical question of how exact the details have to be, in order to qualify as "being faithful." Neither NOSFERATU nor DRACULA features the ending from the book, but NOSFERATU's ending is a completely original invention not derived from the text in anyway. The ending in DRACULA is at least a dim echo of the book.

[hollywoodgothiq]

Oh, one tanget I forgot to mention -- on the subject of faithfulness to the source material...

There are three productions of DRACULA that claim to be faithful to the book: the film version of COUNT DRACULA (1970), the BBC tele-version COUNT DRACULA, and the Coppola-directed BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA. For differing reasons, I can't stand any of them.

[urgeok]

i read somewhere that hands down - this was the most faithful of all by far to the source material :

[alkytrio666]

Originally posted by hollywoodgothiq
No, it would not.

It would be fair to say that neither one makes use of the relatively small plot point of having Harker recognize the Count back in London.

But the 1931 DRACULA is a cliff notes version of the book, with elements of the play thrown in. The essential differnce between the film and the book is that Dracula does not lurk in the shadows; he is openly invited into the polite society that he is preying on.

Well, we're never gonna get anywhere. Agree to disagree.

[hollywoodgothiq]

Fine with me.

May we give the last word to Leonard Wolf? I was reorganizing some stuff last night and happened upon my copy or "A Dream of Dracula," in which the scholar writes:

...Browning's DRACULA, with all due allowances for its slow pacing and its mistaken emphais, has the cool poise of a masterpiece in the horror of black and white. The film is strong because Browning, like Stoker, respected the vampire in his own terms. The theme of blood as embodied in the un-dead who drinks the life of beautiful maidens is in the foreground. The result, as with Stoker's DRACULA, is that the undeviating simplicity of the plot stirs up a rich cloud of mythic materials which, when it settles, gives the audience a well-found sense that it has been watching both a prototype and a classic. Murnau, on the other hand, was making something else. For one thing, his is a mideval imagination, and all he asks of the vampire story is that it should give him an occasion for a visual danse macabre. If NOSFERATU cannot have film descendants in the vampire genre, it is because Murnau had other things in mind: architecture, politics, and the triumph of love, for instance. Both films are equally classics, but in quite different genres. Browning's is American sexual horror at is innocent best; Murnau's is German distilled paranoia, portentous, dreamlike, and cold.

[von chaney]

nice to see the debate still raging.

i am shocked, SHOCKED!!

i had to write in 'cos i actually agree with hollywood on something at last.

you are right about the so called faithful adaptations of dracula in later years, although i am intrigured by your opinion ( surprise surprise) on them. while i doubt that any of them will ever be hailed as great classics, although coppola's tried,surely they do have some redeeming qualities.

lee's 1970 adaptation of the count does suffer from an obvious lack of budget and suspect direction from jess franco, but lee gives probably his most satisfying performance as the arch vampire, and there is good support from lom and kinski. but not lee's most memorable outing thats for sure.

the bbc's effort could have , and should have been better. i have only seen it once, many years ago ,but my lingering recolection of this film is just how long it was and some dubious special effects. a shame, but not a total disaster.

i did like coppola's version on the whole, although reeves and ryder are a bit wet. oldman i like apart from when he's getting mushy with mina. i thought the introduction of vlad quite clever too, but there is something to suggest that maybe coppola tried a bit too hard on this film.

but to say you hate all of these sounds a little strong, surely? they all bring something different to the story in their own way.

to say you HATE them all is like saying nosferatu is not a classic....just incomprehensible!!!

[hollywoodgothiq]

Seems like this is a topic for a whole new thread, but here goes...

The Jess Franco COUNT DRACULA is shabby, filled with a constant barely motivated use of the zoom lens to underline every tiny, little incident. Christopher Lee himself once summed up the philosophy behind the movie thus: "Get it on camera and slightly in focus, and it will make money somewhere, if not a lot." It's basically schlock, with some interest for its curiosity value.

The BBC COUNT DRACULA seems to have almost as many defenders as NOSFERATU, and it is equally overrated, equally bad -- probably more so. The television values are just not up to the job of telling the story, and the pacing is frankly dull. The last time I even tried to watch any of it was during a convention timed with the 100th anniversary of Stoker's novel. I sat through five minutes of two guys working in Seward's sanitarium as they look out the window and see some boxes arriving at Carfax Abbey -- a scene that should have lasted fifteen seconds, all visual (we get the point when we see the boxes and know they house the Count's coffins). Instead, the scene goes on for what seems like another five minutes while the two characters sit around and discuss the fact that the abbey has been rented by some foreign count -- exposition we in the audience already known. It's a pointless, stupid way to tell a story and deserves contempt.

As for the Coppola film, it's filled with wonderful production values, but it is an absolute mess, based more closely on THE DRACULA TAPE than Stoker's Dracula. Trying to cast the Count as a romantic hero is ridiculous, and Mina's pretty much a dim bulb if she falls for the Count's overtures. The film pretends she's his one and only true love but ignores that she's simply becoming part of his harem, which already includes three previous brides. Oerall, I think the approach is worthy of a daytime talk show: "Vampires, and the Women who Love Them" -- today, on Oprah.

[von chaney]

you're a harsh man hollywood, but i do generally agree with what you say about franco's and bbc's dracula.

but while coppola's may not quite reach it's full potential it's really not that bad.
i thought coppola was trying to bring the story to a modern audience and on the whole did well. i've heard of dracula as a romantic hero many times before, not just in this version.
as for mina being a bit dim (yes she is), wasn't the count using his "powers" on her also? i never really thought of him attempting to make her his 4th bride in this version as the apparant love story between them was so prolific. i had the impression he wanted mina as his one true love.

in other films, lugosi for example, i would definately go along with your comment. it appears that dracula is after mina for the sake of possession alone.

i saw it as the same film, just simply from a different perspective.you sound as though you feel much of the film was laughable.

but as you say, this has little to do with 1931!!

[alkytrio666]

Actually, as far as atmosphere, plot, etc., I believe Coppolas hit the closest home to the book.