Dracula
- Episode aired Nov 18, 1968
- 1h 15m
IMDb RATING
6.6/10
110
YOUR RATING
A vampire count from Transylvania arrives in Victorian England.A vampire count from Transylvania arrives in Victorian England.A vampire count from Transylvania arrives in Victorian England.
Photos
Margaret Nolan
- Vampire
- (as Marie Legrand)
Nina Baden-Semper
- Vampire
- (as Nina Baden Semper)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaDracula's fangs were modeled after the actual dentition of the vampire bat.
- ConnectionsFeatured in In Search of Dracula with Mark Gatiss (2020)
Featured review
MYSTERY AND IMAGINATION: Dracula (TV) (Patrick Dromgoole, 1968) ***
R.L. Stevenson's "Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde" and Bram Stoker's "Dracula" are certainly among the most-filmed of horror novels. On a personal note, at the current count, the former leads by 16 movie versions watched (including two animated shorts!) but the latter is hard on its heels with 15 (including this one): 1922 (German), 1931, 1931 (Spanish), 1953 (Turkish), 1958, 1967 (Pakistani), 1970, 1973 (TV), 1974, 1977 (TV), 1979, 1979 (German), 1992 and 2002 (TV).
Like the same year's FRANKENSTEIN, this is a creditable rendition of the vampire staple, but it too goes off on bizarre tangents (most bafflingly, its emphasizing very minor characters such as a graveyard caretaker and Lucy's mother!), while streamlining plot points (like the 1931 adaptations, Harker is bestowed with characteristics usually attributed to Renfield). Similarly, too, the choice of leading man is quite audacious: if anything, Denholm Elliott's sporting of thin dark glasses here would be picked up by Gary Oldman in the would-be definitive 1992 version! For the record, Elliott would also appear as the protagonist of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall Of The House Of Usher" from this same series (of which only 8 out of 24 episodes are still available for reappraisal!).
Again, as with FRANKENSTEIN, the heroine's role (Mina) is undernourished, while Professor Van Helsing is given a distinct Jewish slant! However, two other figures are so impressively incarnated that they threaten to swamp Dracula himself: these are Corin Redgrave's white-haired, giddy yet erudite Harker (who seems to be channeling Peter Sellers!) and Susan George as a vixenish Lucy (an interesting aspect to her is that she is made to experience gradual personality changes before becoming a fully-fledged member of the Undead!).
To make up for the low-budget obviously allotted to the film-makers, the camera is ably deployed to suggest the supernatural – notably the 'trippy' flashback to Harker's terrifying tenure at Castle Dracula and depicting the waking vampire from his forced daytime slumber via a series of dissolves of his (atypically) re-constituted stony grave. While Elliott's rather dapper and insufficiently creepy bloodsucker is no match for the likes of Max Schreck, Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee and Klaus Kinski, the film is undeniably marked by other qualities that ought to distinguish it even within the vastness of the considerable cinematic treatments of the subject at hand.
Like the same year's FRANKENSTEIN, this is a creditable rendition of the vampire staple, but it too goes off on bizarre tangents (most bafflingly, its emphasizing very minor characters such as a graveyard caretaker and Lucy's mother!), while streamlining plot points (like the 1931 adaptations, Harker is bestowed with characteristics usually attributed to Renfield). Similarly, too, the choice of leading man is quite audacious: if anything, Denholm Elliott's sporting of thin dark glasses here would be picked up by Gary Oldman in the would-be definitive 1992 version! For the record, Elliott would also appear as the protagonist of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall Of The House Of Usher" from this same series (of which only 8 out of 24 episodes are still available for reappraisal!).
Again, as with FRANKENSTEIN, the heroine's role (Mina) is undernourished, while Professor Van Helsing is given a distinct Jewish slant! However, two other figures are so impressively incarnated that they threaten to swamp Dracula himself: these are Corin Redgrave's white-haired, giddy yet erudite Harker (who seems to be channeling Peter Sellers!) and Susan George as a vixenish Lucy (an interesting aspect to her is that she is made to experience gradual personality changes before becoming a fully-fledged member of the Undead!).
To make up for the low-budget obviously allotted to the film-makers, the camera is ably deployed to suggest the supernatural – notably the 'trippy' flashback to Harker's terrifying tenure at Castle Dracula and depicting the waking vampire from his forced daytime slumber via a series of dissolves of his (atypically) re-constituted stony grave. While Elliott's rather dapper and insufficiently creepy bloodsucker is no match for the likes of Max Schreck, Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee and Klaus Kinski, the film is undeniably marked by other qualities that ought to distinguish it even within the vastness of the considerable cinematic treatments of the subject at hand.
helpful•60
- Bunuel1976
- Oct 31, 2011
Details
- Runtime1 hour 15 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1
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