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Shot with the cinematographic style of a Lifetime movie-- where everything is perfectly lit with no regard to atmosphere of mood-- the movie is more faithful than any other adaption of Dracula I've seen on film but that's not saying much.

Francis Ford Coppolla's take had more style, but his idea to change Dracula from a villain to a love starved John Lennon never sat right with me.

This version features Christopher Lee-- who has taken many turns up at Bat as the vampire count and this one ranks among his strongest performances.

BUT-- and this is a big but-- that doesn't save this from being a very boring and not the least bit scary take on Bram Stoker's classic vampire film. Someday maybe someone will combine the best elements of all of the previous films and follow the novel's storyline-- but this ain't it.

Interesting that Klaus Kinski is cast as Renfield since he himself would later go on to play Dracula in 1979.

Fred MacMurray knocked it out of the park in Billy Wilder's DOUBLE INDEMNITY as the street smart insurance salesman who gets out-smarted by Barbara Stanwyck's femme fatale in the classic Film Noir (some even say it's the first true film noir). This time around we get to see what a similar plot looks like in the hands of lesser creators.

The musical score and the cinematography are pedestrian by comparison, and although this marks the debut of Kim Novak her character is nowhere near as interesting as the multi- dimensional scheming Phyllis of DOUBLE fame.

While Wilder mined the chemistry between MacMurray and Edward G. Robinson as his boss in the earlier film-- so much so that MacMurray was able to stay out of the radar of the otherwise sharp Robinson, E.G. Marshall is cardboard as the boss in this entry.

A big disappointment at a time when KISS ME DEADLY and THE KILLING were getting film noir right. Something to watch if you come across it but I wouldn't go out of my way to find it.

If you're expecting MALTESE FALCON you're in the wrong place. This first in the RKO Dick Tracy movies based on Chester Gould's hardboiled policeman is very faithful to the source material and a LOT of fun.

The cast is well chosen and Morgan Conway looks like he stepped right off the comics page.

What is unexpected is the inky black noirish camera work, something that was very rare for a B-picture. The entire series was entertaining, with Ralph Byrd replacing Conway for the third and fourth installments, and the two earliest entries were geared towards an adult audience as shown in the violence depicted.

Pull the stick out of your crack, sit back and enjoy some very entertaining little films from a more innocent time, when our good guys were someone to look up to.