Dracula - Masterpiece Theatre
by Bill Eagles
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DVD details
Actor: David Suchet, Marc Warren, Sophia MylesDirector: Bill Eagles
Brand: Wgbh Wholesale
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); German (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 90 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-03-06
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: PBS
Product features:
- Masterpiece Theatre presents a stunning new dramatization of Bram Stoker's terrifying horror story. A young aristocrat with the world at his feet is about to marry the love of his life when he discovers he's inherited an horrific disease. But his desperation to cheat death could bring destruction to all those around him--including his new wife--as he becomes embroiled in a sinister cult an
DVD Reviews of Dracula - Masterpiece Theatre
DVD Review: Don?t Mess with a Classic!
Summary: 1 Stars
The first book that I ever read cover to cover was (Abraham) Bram Stokers Dracula. I rode the bus down down all by myself to the Erie Bookstore, to purchase a hardcover Modern Library edition with a dust jacket.
I watched the BBC production of Bram Stokers novel Dracula, in which Count Dracula is played by Louis Jourdan. So I was ready for another two-and-a-half-hour blockbuster. One can never have too many versions of the Dracula was I disappointed! However, it was an interesting take on the story. In the beginning there is a section that suffers from bad editing which makes no sense. Arthur Holmwood in this version pays Count Dracula's way to England mysterious cult offers him salvation from a terrible secret by accepting a transfusion of his blood. I don't think that he he is aware that Dracula is an animated corpse who suffers himself from rare disease, porphyria, or vampirism. When Dracula goes to put the bite on Singleton who is the high priest of the "Brotherhood of the Undead," he pulls out a revolver, and shots himself in the head rather than obtaining eternal life. His aim should have been worse, and shot screenwriter Stewart Harcourt screenplay though the head. Donald Sumpter, who plays the part of Singleton, co-starred with David Suchet in the Hercule Poirot movie The ABC Murders, about a serial killer in 1930's London. Bram Stoker's original notes for his novel include a character named Alfred Singleton.
I love Jess Franco's Count Dracula, but the major problem with that film is Herbert Lom as Van Helsing. He plays the role as the character who is ineffectual, and it is a wonder that they get Count Dracula in the end. They should have got Peter Cushing for "Professor Abraham Van Helsing." David Suchet (who is know for portraying detective Hercule Poirot) in the role as Van Helsing looks and sounds like Peter Ustinov as The Old Man in the movie Logans Run. I was waiting for him to talk about his precious cats.
Some people don't like Jack Palance in the 1973 television version of Dracula. I love Dan Curtis productions of Dracula, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Jack Palance was very believable in the roles. It is to bad that Jack Palance did not accept other roles as Dracula. Dan Curtis? Kolchak: The Night Stalker is the best series that has ever been on television.
Francis Coppola's 1992 version of Dracula was a major disappointment. Where did the idea come from to hold together Dracula's Castle with huge steel I-beams? I have a lot of problems for the chooses that they made in making this film. It is made in a Gone with the Wind style. The BBC version of Dracula his castle is clearly a model. The models in Mel Brooks' 1995 version of Dracula, Dead and loving it are much more realistic.
I could get into the bizarre cult that worships Dracula. I though was a good idea, but they made them look too much like Devil worshipers. I don't understand what is wrong with gypsies? Is it because they hate gypsies in England? Dracula is not evil, it is a love story, the Passions of Count Dracula. What Dracula does to survive. The problem is that it spreads evil, but he did not create this evil. Dracula was not the first vampire in history, but he was the most successful at it. Lilith is sometimes called the mother of all vampires is part of Jewish demonology and mythology, which has its basis in early Babylonian demonology. In the original story, Dracula has existed for 500 years, and in the BBC version they claim that this creature is 900 years old. They cannot even get his age correct. Are they making him as old or older than Dr. Who? The thing about Count Dracula, he can posses any woman that he wants, but in the process of making her like him, her soul is lost. He can have their love and their heart, but never their souls. Lets face it, Marc Warren would not even be a good choose to play Dr. Who. Marc Warren?s Dracula is not even suffocated enough to have three brides hanging out with him in the castle.
The move held on to the notion of the anxiety and fear of sex during Victorian era. This version cut out the characters of Renfield, and Quincey Morris. Jack Seward is played too young, and I kept waiting for them to add in a homosexual character, which the Victorians really had a problem with. Since it may be implied that there is more to just the discussion of sexual matters between Lucy and Mina, and they had shared a common sexual life together.
Dracula always seem to me like a comment on Anti-Semitism. Don't impose your Anti-Semitic Religion upon us. Dracula may be the Jew with his long nose who will not step into the light. He will never walk in the light because he embraces the darkness. Dracula and his vampires are hunted down to extinction because they walk in the darkness. He turns away from Christian symbols, and can be held at bay by them. A vampire corrupts the young girls with their unholy union. Keep it Kosher! I get if someone would hold up a slab of bacon, we would both run away in terror. He casts no reflection in a mirror because he has no immortal soul even though he is eternally undead. Dracula being undead is like being eternally stuck between heaven and hell. When Dracula dies, there is never any mention that his soul is released. He is in limbo, until he can come back stronger. Ebenezer Scrooge (more than likely a gentleman of Hebrew extraction) said it best, "Humbug! Let me practice Xmas in my own way.......(not at all)" Evil is in the heart of man, and not in super-natural creatures. This means that if goodness is not found in the heart of man, then you won?t find it in the hearts of super-natural creatures. It god is dead, then magic is also dead.
The only way that this version can be saved, Turn it into schlock. Film an hour and a half of adult X-rated scenes, and combine the film with this new additional footage. Then this made for television movie version might be worth watching. The only good thing about this Masterpiece version of Dracula is that there a lot more dreadful vampire flicks out there. I would rather watch (over and over again) Dracula: Dead and loving it. David J. Skal, a scholar of the original Dracula film hates Mel Brooks' 1995 version of Dracula. Dead and loving it is based upon Bela Lugos's classic Universal flick of 1931, Dracula, and takes jabs at Francis Ford Coppola's grandiose 1992 interpretation of Bram Stoker's classic novel. Leslie Nielsen plays Dracula in a camp fashion. It is a role Bela Lugosi would have played. He always wanted to make a color remake of the original Dracula, and he loved doing camp as well.
This movie adaptation of Dracula that features the detail from the novel, that the Dracula character grows younger as he drinks more blood. The other two versions were Jess Franco's Count Dracula, and Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula.
Murphy's Law now seems to say, that the BBC cannot out do their 1977 class of Dracula. We know that the actor and director Clint Eastwood can make war movies and westerns. Someone needs to make a bet with him, that he can not make his own version of Dracula. Mr. Eastwood would make a version which would win Academy Awards. This BBC version would not even get a nomination. Someone bet Aldous Huxley that he could not write a science fiction book. Jules Verne and H. G. Wells had their own vision of how people in the future would be effected by machines. So he wrote Brave New World, and was forever after he know as a science fiction writer because of only one book.
I watched it on Masterpiece Theater, and will purchase the DVD. I collect vampire movies: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Thumbs drown to the new BBC version of Dracula! It is bad. There is no one to wish to win or survive, since Jonathan Harker the traditional hero of the original story is killed off in the beginning of the movie. I told a bunch of people about this movie, luckily nobody I told tuned in to watch this dog of a picture. The movie begins, and ends with a bad hair day for the Count. Count Opossum-Boy Sucks!
Description of Dracula - Masterpiece Theatre
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