Jess Franco’s Count Dracula
Originally published in 1897 and adapted for the stage immediately after by the author himself in order to establish copyright on that medium, Dracula has subsequently transformed itself to other formats many times over, with estimates of the number of adaptations and guest appearances numbering up to a thousand across different media, sometimes in disguise such as with Count Orlok of F W Murnau’s first filmed version Nosferatu, avoiding stepping on intellectual property as carefully as sunlight, and only occasionally in an ostensibly faithful retelling of the source novel.
Directed by Jesús “Jess” Franco and released in Germany in 1970 as Nachts, wenn Dracula erwacht (“At night, when Dracula awakens“) and eventually over three years later in Britain, Count Dracula was an international co-production with location and studio shooting in Spain and Italy, starring The Wicker Man’s Christopher Lee in the title role and Mark of the Devil’s Herbert Lom as Van Helsing, his late addition towards the end of production meaning that although he and Lee share scenes they are never in shot together.
The majority of the cast European, German Fred Williams as Jonathan, Austrian Maria Rohm as Mina, Spanish Soledad Miranda as Lucy and Swiss Paul Müller as Doctor Seward, only Jack Taylor is authentic as the American character of Quincy Morris, though German actor Klaus Kinski’s appearance as the lunatic Renfield foreshadows his own turn as the lead in Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu the Vampyre later that decade, and in the English language prints all but Lee and Lom are dubbed, the discontinuity somewhat deflating the performances of the actors who spend much of their time staring blankly at the camera.
With “day for night” shooting used for many of the nocturnal scenes such as when Lucy is drawn from her bed to wander under strangely illuminated clouds, it adds eerie mystery, and the sparse scrubland of the Transylvanian scenes contrasts with the lush green surround under summer skies of Carfax Abbey and the sanitorium, though conversely the interior scenes are overlit in a white wash, showcasing the gorgeous sets, furnishings and costumes but leaving little space for atmosphere to exist other than when Mina is lured to the theatre, sat alone in her box, the depths of which are in deep shadow from which Count Dracula emerges.
Lee having already played Dracula three times for Hammer with his fourth, Taste the Blood of Dracula, released immediately after Franco’s adaptation, he had been unhappy with how the character had been portrayed in those films, a mute, snarling monster, whereas this version has him as he was in Stoker’s novel, verbose, intelligent, a more complex character-based performance in the initial stages although this diminishes as the film goes on and drifts further from the promised faithful retelling, though physically, with his moustache and growing younger as he feeds, his appearance is accurately as described.
Mina and Lucy the only two prominent women, they have little agency, shortchanged through the excision of the Whitby scenes from Stoker’s source material, their diminished presence then unbalancing their relationships with the men who love and protect them leaving the film feeling superficial; Count Dracula goes goes through the requisite motions, the trauma, the tragedy, the horror, but they remain untouched, men of no emotion, the dead unmourned, particularly the gypsies of the rushed finale, collateral damage from the polystyrene rocks which rain down on their caravan from the walls of Castle Dracula.
Jess Franco’s Count Dracula will be available on the the Arrow platform from Friday 20th September
