Heaven (or Hell) knows that the Gothic horror tale of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” has been told about a zillion times over the years, often with considerable liberties taken with both the novel as well as its titular character; in fact, it’s been changed so many times over the years that one might get the idea that doing an adaptation that’s more or less faithful to the Stoker text isn’t worth doing. In 1977, however, the ever-diligent BBC produced a version – entitled “Count Dracula” – that, in addition to being one of the most precise transitions from novel to screen, is a pretty damned good viewing experience all around.
Here, the Count is played by Louis Jordan, who, even with credits on his lengthy resume which range from “Gigi” to “Octopussy,” will always be most fondly remembered by this writer for his villainous turn in “Swamp Thing” (and, to a decidedly lesser extent, “The Return of Swamp Thing”). Your mileage may vary as to your opinions on how he plays the role of Dracula, but I was entertained by the vaguely smug manner in which he reacted to those persons reacting to him. Other actors of note who appear in the production are Frank Finlay (he played Porthos in a trio of “Musketeers” films) as Professor Van Helsing, and Judi Bowker (she was Princess Andromeda in “Clash of the Titans”) as Mina Westenra.
The production bounces back and forth between film and video, like most BBC productions, but given that there’s decidedly no shortage of real castles in the UK, it looks quite authentic more often than not. Director Philip Saville (“Mandela,” “Metroland”) opts to utilize a film-negative effect when Count Dracula is feeding, with an additional amount of red around the eyes; it looks a mite cheesy nowadays, but not in, say, a mid-’70s “Doctor Who” way. (In other words, you see what he was going for and learn to accept it pretty quickly.) There are some surprisingly disconcerting moments throughout the proceedings, the most notable of the bunch being when the Brides of Dracula are clearly shown to be feeding on the blood of a baby; apparently, the scene was excised from various rebroadcasts over the years, but it’s intact on this DVD release. It’s also an inexpensive but effectively creepy moment when we see Dracula crawling down the wall of his castle, a scene which apparently had never been included in an adaptation of the novel before.
Given that it is an impressively faithful adaptation of the Stoker novel, “Count Dracula” can get a bit slow at times, but all told, I’d personally pick this over Francis Ford Coppolla’s version.
