Conde Drácula

The BBC's 1977 production of "Count Dracula" arguably represents for many Dracula aficionados the finest screen version of Stoker's novel ever likely to be made.

"Count Dracula" probably stands alone by virtue of its very faithful adherence to Stoker's plot, as well as the uniformly stunning quality of the acting performances (who, for instance, could forget Jack Shepherd's "Renfield"?).

But for me, the most outstanding feature of the production is the conscious, studied, Gothic restraint of the female cast, echoing much of what was best about the early Hammer vampire movies before the regrettable advent of the "tits and fangs" genre.

Without the exposure of a single breast, the trio of female vampires at Castle Dracula succeed in conveying an astonishing level of sexual allurement as they coquettishly tease Jonathan Harker with his letter to Mina.

In similar vein, when the (by now un-dead) Lucy Westenra is confronted in the cemetery by the group of vampire slayers, she transforms herself almost instantaneously from a blood-stained Fury from Hell into a virginal Lady of Shalot, and then back again.

How sad that this near-perfect cinematic achievement appears to have been very largely eclipsed by "Dracula" of 1978, as well as Coppola's "Bram Stoker's Dracula"!

This BBC produced adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel is one of the most faithful ever filmed, aswell as being one of the most atmospheric and spookiest. At two and a half hours long it's certainly ambitious, but Louis Jourdan gives the performance of his life as Dracula. Handsome, elegant, and charmingly polite, he is also a sociopath who knows how to gaslight those who are under his control. Frank Finley is brilliant as Van Helsing, he actually looks like a Dutchman (which the character was), and plays the role as if it was Shakespeare. Jack Shepherd comes close to stealing the show though, in a gleefully manic turn as the fly eating Renfield, a disciple of the count incarcerated in a lunatic asylum. A highlight is Dracula's crawl down the castle wall, witnessed by Jonathan Harker from his window. Hammer films did this sequence in Scars of Dracula (1970), but it wasn't half as good as it is here. Kudos too for this adaptation featuring the English seaside town of Whitby. An integral part of Stoker's novel ( and which to this day attracts Dracula devotees from around the world to it's annual goth weekend), it is pretty much ignored in practically every other version that has been filmed. Philip Seville's film however features great location filming, including making use of the towns atmospheric abbey ruins. This is one TV movie you can really get your teeth into.

Like most people on here I also thought this BBC version was the most faithful adaptation of Stoker's original novel. Granted, they have changed a few details; for example, Mina and Lucy are sisters, the characters of Quincy and Arthur have been amalgamated and Jonathan visits the Count at his castle in Bohemia rather than Transylvania, but these minor deviations aside, I think even Stoker himself would have said this version was fairly close to what he had in mind while writing his famous novel.

Being from the UK I have grown up with the BBC and the programmes it produced in the 1970's. Watching 'Count Dracula' as an adult on DVD was, in many ways, a very pleasant nostalgic journey back to my childhood. Yes, I agree the budget did impose certain restrictions on the production...fake bats and obvious stage sets instantly spring to mind.....along with the mix of video and film but, to me, instead of being negative points these so called 'flaws' all added to its charm. That said, it also had some genuinely outstanding points; it is truly creepy, fantastically acted, perfectly cast and and had excellent script. The undoubted highlight for me has to be the location filming in Whitby cemetery; the scenes of Lucy being attacked in the graveyard were actually filmed in the very graveyard that inspired Stoker when he was writing the novel back in the 1890's. Cut to Francis Ford Copploa's 1992 version....which also makes a claim to being a faithful adaptation of the novel... and it doesn't even mention Whitby at all.

As for Louis Joudan, in my opinion, he is simply the best ever Dracula; understated, sophisticated, menacing and arrogant. Both Lugosi and Oldman were good but they were a bit too camp and shouted their evil from the rooftops. Jourdan, on the other hand, whispered in your ear and chilled the very depths your soul without you even really knowing why. In a word, genius. Another role worth noting is Jack Shepherd as Renfield. Again, not a typical over the top portrayal of a madman in an asylum but rather a somewhat more complex character; a normal man tortured by very specific moments of madness. The scene when he begs Dr. Seward to release him is truly, truly magnificent.

I'll not hide the fact that I am a Dracula fan. I love Stoker's original novel and I love the Victorian Gothic ambiance that it contains. While the BBC's version doesn't quite match Coppola's film for atmosphere and special effects, it certainly makes up for it with its script, the quality of the acting and its faithfulness to the original novel. It has to be, without doubt, my single favourite version of the Dracula story.

I saw this once in about 1978 on public television in San Francisco. It was astounding because for once not just the horror, but also the senusality of the Dracula story was transferred to the screen without the (then) standard "monsters jumping out of the box" treatment. I got marvelous chills and tingles while watching. NOW, if those of us who remember this movie/tv show could just get a copy of it!

I have a comment for Author: kriitikko from Kirkkonummi, Finland. I will first use his comments and then respond.

"Ironically, the only performance not so faithful to Stoker, comes from Louis Jourdan as Dracula. This however is not a bad thing. Instead of copying Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee, or playing Dracula more faithfully as a furious warlord (which Jack Palance had done few years earlier in another TV adaptation), Jourdan plays Dracula as calm, calculating demon who seduces his victims by offering them power and eternal life, but who is just coldly using them for his own advantages. In fact Jourdan portraits Dracula as a sort of Anti-Christ creature, who is looking for disciples and going against God. In one of the scenes Van Helsing raises his cross against Dracula and starts to enchant a prayer in Latin, only to receive an arrogant comment from the Count of how prayer always sounds more convincing in Latin. Jourdan may not be most faithful Dracula, but certainly one of the best, making Dracula seem far superior to humans." You are exactly correct. In the novel, Van Helsing states that because Dracula has what he attributes to a be mere "child's mind", that he is "slow to make haste". He uses the Latin term: Festina Lente, which means Hasten slowly or as Van Helsing puts it, "slow to make haste".

This however proves to be Dracula's ultimate downfall.

Though Van Helsing also warned Jonathan that "if he (Dracula) dared to use his full array of his powers, he would have been long beyond our (meaning the vampire hunters) reach".

Thus proving his point. And Dracula's arrogance about believing himself to be vastly superior to mere mortals. He thought himself to be so superior, that in the end they finally defeated him. Because he failed to prepare for the fact that humans in the late 19th Century were better able to combat him, than human contemporaries of his 15th Century.