Dracula (1979)

Dracula (John Badham, 1979) A Tony Award winning Broadway revival of the 1924 stage version with stage design by Edward Gorey and a much-heralded performance by Frank Langella in the lead* was the inspiration for this late 70's version of the Bram Stoker story. By the time Universal Studios decided to make another version of the play,** Gorey was out, but director John Badham wanted to make the film in black-and-white to better reflect the Broadway version, but the studio wouldn't have it monochromatic.***

The film, adapted from the 1924 Deane-Balderston play by W.D. Richter, would boast some high-end talent. Badham has just come off the success of Saturday Night Fever and he was able to secure Gilbert Taylor as cinematographer, Bond alums Peter Murton as production designer and Maurice Binder—who was experimenting with laser effects at the time—for the title sequence (and as "visual consultant), John Williams (at the time the hottest film composer after his work on Star Wars and Superman) for the score, and the services of Lord Laurence Olivier (during his Germanic acting phase) as co-star.

We skip Transylvania and Castle Dracula and the hapless Jonathan Harker visit to start off with a dark and stormy night, which lashes the unfortunate ship Demeter, bearing a cargo of dead men (and, apparently, a wolf) and sends it into the shoreline of Whitby, Yorkshire. The local head of the sanitarium, Dr. Seward (Donald Pleasence) examines the bodies and determines that all aboard the death ship have had their throats slashed. Mina Van Helsing (Jan Francis)—who is visiting her friend, the doctor's daughter Lucy (Kate Nelligan)—finds that a man has washed ashore, miraculously saving him from the fate of the others. He is Count Dracula (Langella), who has purchased a nearby mansion-in-ruins, Carfax Abbey.

Seemingly none the worse for wear, The Count accepts a dinner invitation from Dr. Seward at his residence in the sanitorium. Badham gives him a great entrance where he's announced, strides in and with a perfect flourish takes off his cape and hands it, unseeing, to the butler. Langella's Dracula is handsome, Byronic, and has a way of focusing all his charm through his eyes. Langella also has a condition called nystagmus, which creates involuntary movements of the eye, but here it's an advantage rather than any sort of hindrance; his eyes vibrate in close shots that provide a certain focused attention that seems a bit feral.

The evening goes quite well, and if the pairings are uneven, with Lucy Seward attended to by her fiancee, the solicitor Jonathan Harker (Trevor Eve), the Count is only too willing to give his undivided attention to Mina (who looks quite pale). Before too long, she will be dead, and her father Professor Abraham Van Helsing (Olivier) will arrive with questions and a fear that his daughter has joined the Undead. Meanwhile, Dracula turns his attention to Lucy.

Where this Dracula has changed over previous incarnations (or reincarnations) is in Dracula's impression as a romantic hunk, as opposed to a creature of the night. Perhaps, it was Hammer's focus on Dracula's effect on the nubile women in those films, or the portrayal of vampire Barnabas Collins as a doomed romantic figure in the 1960's TV soap "Dark Shadows." As opposed to other versions, there were probably a fair amount of audience members who sided with The Count here, rather than with Seward and Van Helsing. Certainly, the character of Lucy has more than sympathy for him, flashing an enigmatic smile at the film's ambiguous ending.

And, as opposed to Hammer, this Dracula can turn into wolves and bats. In fact, Badham stages a shot where Dracula jumps through a window and emerges as a wolf. And there are several instances of "bat-cams" that parallel a prop-bat as it flies through the air. Binder's laser effects seem a bit irrelevant in the scheme of things, like they were tacked on for effect. But, the most unnerving thing about this Dracula is the way he approaches Mina's room early on, the camera looking up the edifice of Seward's hospital to espy the vampire on the roof, and then he moves down the wall like a cat, emerging upside down in the window and flicking away at the molding with his finger nails. Very creepy.

He also seems less vulnerable to crosses and the other religious paraphenalia and garlics Van Helsing uses against him, and as for only appearing at sun-down, he dismisses it entirely: "It's always daylight somewhere on Earth, professor. After my rest, I only need stay in darkness." Good to know. Universal, the studio that released this version—and other iterations of the 1924 play—as part of their promotional material, put out a poster with handy things to know about vampires in order to "know the facts." I can hear the voice of Agent Scully saying "Well, first, they don't exist..."

All in all, it's not bad. A little hysterical. A little silly. A literal bodice-ripper. But, at least it's a record of Langella's approach to the character from his Broadway run. And there's gratitude for that.

* When Langella left the production, Raul Julia took over. In the touring version, Jeremy Brett and Jean LeClerc played Dracula.

 

** Universal had a major hit (and franchise) with the Bela Lugosi version in 1931. Before the Langella-Gorey run, the previous Broadway performer had been...Bela Lugosi. While the novel is in the public domain (which is why Francis Coppola could make a film of it) Universal owns the film rights to the play, commissioned by the Stoker estate to combat imitations...like Murnau's Nosferatu .

 

*** Universal won that round, getting a golden, richly colored film, but when the film was remastered in 1991, for widescreen laserdisc release, Badham had the colors de-saturated. The 2019 "Shout Factory" DVD release has both the theatrical and laserdic versions.

From Beyond the Grave

Oh, that's right. October is "Hallowe'en Month." "Guess I best pay attention to Horror movies." 

From Beyond the Grave (Kevin Connor, 1974) It was not the best of times for the British film industry around the time this was filmed...but there were advantages. A cheap horror film, like this one, could always be made and because of the low overhead, often made money, even though times were tough. Plus, thanks to some industry-encouraging tax laws, even a film like this one could attract some very good talent, no matter how lurid the subject matter might be. 

From Beyond the Grave is a horror anthology film, collecting four tales under a central umbrella wrap-around story. All four parts were based on the work of British horror writer R. Chetwynd-Hayes, not exactly Edgar Allan Poe or H.P. Lovecraft or even Stephen King, but he had enough output with enough genuine creepiness that he made good fodder for this type of story.

The central conceit is a London hole-in-the-wall called "Temptations Limited"—"Offers You Cannot Resist," run by an elderly and deceptively frail proprietor (Peter Cushing). With one exception, the stories revolve around buyers who cheat the proprietor, but pay a price in the end.

-- "The Gatecrasher" Smarmy Edward Charlton (David Warner) buys an antique mirror from the proprietor, buts cons him into letting him have it a lower cost claiming it a forgery. Charlton, considers himself a high-roller and an amateur spiritualist, but he gets far more than he bargained for when the mirror reveals itself to be possessed by the spirit of Jack the Ripper (Marcel Steiner), who implores Charlton to murder so that he "can feed," which brings dire consequences to both victims and murderer.

-- "An Act of Kindness" Pity poor Christopher Lowe (Ian Bannen); he gets it from all sides: stuck in a lousy middle-management, too old to advance and too young to retire and in an abusive marriage with Mabel (Diana Dors) and a disrespectful son. The only respect he does get is from a matchstick salesman Jim Underwood (Donald Pleasance), veteran of "the war". Lowe tries to impress him that he's a vet, too, claims to have a medal—but resorts to buying one at Temptations Limited, even though he doesn't have the citation for it—and Underwood invites Lowe for dinner where he meet's Jim daughter, Emily (Angela Pleasance, daughter of Donald), who, frankly, is far too attentive to be comfortable—but, when she turns out to have occult powers, Lowe's life becomes more complicated by being made simpler.

-- "The Elemental" Different in tone from the other stories, as it is played for laughs more than chills. Ian Carmichael plays Reggie Warren, a well-to-do businessman and stuffed shirt who buys an antique snuff box after switching the price tag (the proprietor sends him off with a cheery "I hope you enjoy snuffing it!"). On his way, he's informed by the mad psychic Madame Orloff (Margaret Leighton, perfectly happy to play over-the-top) that he has an "elemental" on his shoulder and he should call if he needs her services. Well, Reggie goes home and his dog's gone missing, and his wife (Nyree Dawn Porter) has been attacked by some poltergeistial presence. Hilarity ensues, but not for Reggie.

-- "The Door" Well, not only does Temptations Limited sell mirrors, they also sell doors—ornate ones, and William Seaton (Ian Ogilvy) buys a rather sinisterly-carved one to shutter the pantry, a bitter over-the-top, at least in the opinion of wife Rosemary (Leslie Anne-Down). But, Seaton soon learns that the price for storing your dry goods could be your eternal soul, as passing through the door leads to another time and dimension controlled by the occultist, who had the door made, and that you may go in to get oatmeal, but you might leave your soul behind.

This was Kevin Connor's first directing gig—and he is still directing—won by his editing skills, which is more in abundance than his staging or framing. The film abounds with 1970's stylistics like hand-held shaky cams, and absurd distortions through fish-eye lenses, but every so often something stands out, whether it's the sheer creepiness of Angela Pleasance's performance or how the image in the mirror of "The Gatecrasher" sort of heaves into view creating a sense of dread. In anthologies the strongest story is usually the last one, but here, it's the first one (the placement is due to the protagonists in "The Door" being the only survivors of the movie because they didn't cheat the proprietor). It ultimately isn't much, but there's a lot of talent on display. Think of it as on a par with some good "Night Gallery" episodes.

And I know that "From Beyond the Grave" is a more grabber of a title, but the name of the film really should have been "Caveat Emptor."

Fantastic Voyage

Fantastic Voyage (Richard Fleischer, 1966) There has been a lot of talk recently of re-making 1966's Fantastic Voyage, a fairly interesting (if preposterous) science fiction movie of the 20th Century Fox strain, that did its damnedest to dumb down physiology and biology and make it a race against time with what were cool 60's scientific touchstones like lasers, computer typography, and Raquel Welch in a tight wet-suit (more than she apparently wore in one of the posters for the movie—oh, those mad marketing boys). 

The film is set (naturally) in the middle of the Cold War where Russian and American scientists are battling each other to develop a sustainable miniaturization process, presumably because they know small cars are in coming in the future. Seems they can only keep things shrunk for a limited amount of time and both sides want the secret! And, as there always is, there's ONE MAN in the world who HAS THE SECRET and BOTH SIDES WANT IT!* 

<Aside> Am I just perverse or whenever one of these kinds of plots comes along, and both sides fight to get Dr. MacGuffin, wouldn't it be fun if it turns out that the guy's a charlatan...or just simply wrong?** Maybe he just wanted to visit Chicago (in which case, the joke's on him)...or maybe the Russians just really wanted to get rid of him—"Here, this guy's single-handedly destroying our economy, let's give him to the Americans!!" Actually, I think some of that was in The Living Daylights</Aside>

Anyway, Dr. Benes has the secret, is defecting to the Americans and a botched Russian assassination attempt leaves him with a blood clot in his brain, and so, rather than giving him a shot of heparin (which would cost $70 in our time), our Best and Brightest Budget-Busters decide to inject a miniaturized submarine, The Proteus (designed by the Italian engineer Arturio Schlerosis), crewed by a team of experts to laser the blood clot, and book out of there before they de-miniaturize and give the guy a migraine the size of the military disbursement.

Welch, Kennedy, Pleasance, and Boyd (with William Redfield piloting above)

You read that and go "oh, that sounds so easy" but as with any operation, complications arise, even more than in your average Cialis commercial, and the crew must fight time, tides, detours (The Proteus didn't have Tom Tom), lack of oxygen, VERY LOUD NOISES, and a saboteur among them who's wrecked the laser-thingy. Who could it be? Let's see, it might be Dr. Arthur Kennedy (except he was creepy in the 50's, scholarly in the 60's) or pilot William Redfield (who would be creepy in the 70's), "Rocky" couldn't play evil even if you gave her a dueling scar and a moustache to twirl, leaving only Donald Pleasence, who if agent Steve Boyd knew anything about pop culture, was portraying every other bad guy and crackpot in movies during the 60's...when Steven Boyd wasn't.

The crew has a few hang-ups removing PINK insulation whilst in an artery.
Or is that plaque?

They all get shrunk down to one micron, and are then injected into Benes' blood stream via hypodermic, and try and make their way up to the brain and its offending clot. Arthur O'Connell and Edmond O'Brien monitor the problems of the crew in their control rooms with the obtuse monitors of blinking lights that go spitzin'/sparkin' if something goes wrong. Sailin' along the old blood-stream (which, gosh, who knew it resembles being in a lava-lamp?), the crew wax philosophic and squabble and brainstorm, and Fleischer and his actors all play this with straight faces, no matter how cheesy the sets—the ones involving full-sets look like a particularly tacky wall-paper pattern rather than a cell-wall, while the miniature traveling shots fare considerably better. And there are red blood cells and nasty white ones, and in a perverse science-fiction "Perils of Pauline" moment, Raquel Welch is attacked by...either anti-bodies or cellulite, I forget which.

Cruising a funky blood-stream in Fantastic Voyage.

It's crazy stuff, and I remember reading the Isaac Asimov novel tie-in, and admiring how he worked herculean magic to make all the stuff plausible in a practical sense—for example, he wanted to make sure that every last bit of the Proteus gets out of Benes in order to prevent his head blowing up (in the movie they leave the laser rifle, the ship, all sorts of stuff), conjecturing a time differential between the shrinkees and the shrinkers, and making the issue of getting more oxygen from the lungs a LOT more complicated than the movie ever thought to do (the Proteus crew CANNOT breathe normal air, it has to be miniaturized along with them, as explained by Asimov). It's goofy, but it was different from your typical space movie (while maintaining the tropes of sci-fi films). I still remember it somewhat fondly, while also not taking it at all seriously.

A Fantastic Voyage poster promoting
its subject of biology

*Excuse me, I went into copy-writing mode there.

** Actually, a variation of this "downer" ending was filmed—the Proteus crew did so much damage bumping into the defecting doctor's inner workings that he survives the process...but has forgotten his secret. Insert a Nelson Muntz "HAH-ha!" here.