John Badham’s Dracula opens on the ship bringing Count Dracula (Frank Langella) to English shores, and as I watched it, two words popped into my head: production values. The film has that slick Hollywood look of a certain period, as if it had been over-produced on a massive budget. There is meticulous detail, obviously by an obsessive production designer and an army of artists and carpenters. It’s rich and detailed . . . and completely unconvincing, looking like just what it is: a set at Shepperton Studios, being rocked by grips and splashed with fake sea-water.
Dracula’s new home, Carfax Abbey, is over-designed as well, with layer upon layer of fake cobwebs and broken skulls. All this in the English countryside, no less, which looks spectacularly gray and moody. Dracula is that kind of film: beautifully photographed and lushly atmospheric, but ultimately empty. Despite all the studio hype of a erotic new take on the Count — and it was considerable at the time — the movie is a beautiful corpse, just like its lead bloodsucker.
Kate Nelligan and Disco Dan
Director Badham keeps things moving along as best he can with a script that is inherently talky. It was adapted from the play by Hamilton Deane and John Balderston, which was also the basis for the 1931 Bela Lugosi version. Frank Langella had been starring in the play on Broadway , and producer Walter Mirisch persuaded him to take on the movie role as well. He is fine as Dracula, giving a strong and commanding performance; as his love interest Lucy Seward, Kate Nelligan is beautiful but cold. More to the point, she and Langella generate little heat. Despite their considerable physical beauty, there is no chemistry between them.
In addition to Nelligan, Laurence Olivier plays Abraham Van Helsing and Donald Pleasance is Dr. Seward. Casting Olivier as Van Helsing seems to be a typical Hollywood stunt. I can almost see the producers sitting around saying: “I know! We’ll get one of the most respected actors in the English language to play this guy, maybe pull in some of that, whatchamacallit, arthouse crowd.” In an interview for the DVD, Langella said he was warned never to get into a two-shot with Pleasance, who was a consummate stealer of scenes. It was good advice — between him and Olivier, there isn’t a peace of scenery around without a bite mark in it.
This movie might have done better if there weren’t already two other Dracula flicks out. There was Nosferatu, Werner Herzog’s remake of the 1922 silent, for the arthouse crowd (so not even Olivier could help) and Love at First Bite, with George Hamilton in full self-parodic flower. It’s hard to take a good vampire serious when you’re laughing all the way to the crypt.
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I saw this last year for the first time since seeing it in the theater when it was released. I was hoping your review would say something different so I could give my opinion but as it is I agree with you 100 percent. It looked absolutely beautiful to me. I remember seeing the car drive up on the beach near the beginning and thinking, “I wouldn’t mind having a picture of that.” But then nothing happens. Nothing. It’s not even undead, it’s lifeless. And Langela looks like he should be wearing John Travolta’s white suit from Saturday Night Fever, with his very un-Dracula like coiff. In the end, all I can say is, it bored me to tears.
And what was that weird Langella eye flutter thing? Did you notice that? It looked ridiculous.
It’s called “the Langella twitch,” and it was quite en vogue in certain circles of hell.
And Langella’s coiff was indeed disco styled … thank God there wasn’t any of that music in the score. I can’t believe anyone ever listened to that stuff.
I’m going to re-cut this version of Dracula using only A Fifth of Beethoven for the score. My God, it’ll be glorious!
I remember being surprised at how good Langella was. Other than that, I remember nothing about this film.
Jonathan, I wanna see it cut to “Stayin’ Alive,” kind of apropo, considering it’s so dead.
Bill, Langella is very good in it, it’s the movie itself that’s DOA. Kate Nelligan is hot, but cold, if you get my drift. And she’s kind of dropped off the radar screen since the ’80s
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[...] Dracula – 1979 – Frank Langella portrays another version of Dracula, this time as an extraordinarily sexual and attractive predator. Also stars Lawrence Olivier and Donald Pleasance. (This was another Universal Dracula movie, although it’s not related to the earlier films.) [...]