Jess Franco’s Count Dracula – Special Edition (Dark Sky)
Picture: C Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Film: B-
After
playing Dracula for Hammer Studios on several occasions and still not finished
doing so, Christopher Lee reunited with his two-time Fu Manchu director Jess Franco for one of a series of revisionist
Dracula films that become a cycle at the time.
Count Dracula (1970) is one
of many that promised to return to the book as its source, though this always
seems to come with the personalities of the star and director.
This
version offers a solid cast that includes Klaus Kinski (a future Nosferatu
himself) as Renfeld, Soledad Miranda as Lucy, Maria Rohm as Mina and Herbert
Lom as an exceptional Van Helsing.
Despite a low budget, this is one of the better tellings on film of the
original story and I give Lee credit for trying a different, less
expressionistic approach to playing the most famous vampire of all.
Despite
questions about the print, this is 97 minutes long, which is about the full
length of the uncut edition. The twist
here is a Dorian Gray/Helen Of Troy bit about Dracula becoming younger every
time he drinks blood. This was used even
more effectively in Paul Morrissey’s Blood
For Dracula (1974), but offers Lee and Franco further distance form the
Hammer series. All in all, this is one
of the best-cast and executed Draculas and is worth seeing, despite the discs
limits.
The
tunnel vision version of the Techniscope film is off of a foreign print meant
for TV and/or venues that could not unsqueeze the scope image. This is 1.33 X 1 pan and scan, while the
actual film would be 2.35 X 1. It is too
soft, the EastmanColor is somewhat consistent at best and is awkward
throughout. Some posters even credited
the film as Panavision, but Techniscope was the cheap pre-Super 35 version of
actual anamorphic shooting. The Dolby
Digital 2.0 Mono is not as bad, though there is a good share of dubbing
throughout. Extras include stills, Lee
reading the original Stoker book set to stills from the film, Beloved Count featurette with a Franco
interview and text essay by Miranda.
I give
Franco credit for his observations on why the Coppola Dracula did not work and may not totally be a Horror genre work
after all. Many versions, usually bad
and worse than Coppola’s, especially vampire films in general have been awful
and much worse. The one version this did
remind me of was the U.S. TV Movie/European theatrical Dracula with director Dan Curtis and Jack Palance from 1973 (also
on DVD from MPI) where the personalities are very strong in the result. Now if only Clive Donner’s Old Dracula with David Niven could be
issued on DVD.
- Nicholas Sheffo
