Dracula *** (1973, Jack Palance, Simon Ward, Nigel Davenport) – Classic Movie Review 1728

‘There he lay looking as if youth had been half renewed… the mouth was redder than ever for on the lips were gouts of fresh blood, which trickled from the corners of the mouth and ran over the chin and neck.’ Producer-director Dan Curtis’s faithful and effective 1974 horror movie, is also known as Bram Stoker’s Dracula to emphasise its respect to the original 1897 classic novel. It was the most authentic version most American audiences had seen at the time.

Curtis unexpectedly though shrewdly casts Jack Palance as the bloodsucking Count but the actor scores a notable success in the role, notching up a high score of gore to add to his scary, highly polished show of an animalistic creature with only a thin charming, civilised veneer, in great contrast to Christopher Lee’s suave nobleman vampire.

The studio filming was done in Britain, hence the stalwart UK cast (Simon Ward as Lord Arthur Holmwood, Nigel Davenport as Professor Van Helsing, Pamela Brown as Mrs. Westenra, Fiona Lewis as Lucy, Murray Brown as Jonathan Harker, George Pravda as the Innkeeper and Penelope Horner as Mina) helping Palance out. And the beautiful location work in Yugoslavia adds allure. Trakoscan Castle, Croatia, is used for Dracula’s castle in long shots and Oakley Court, Windsor, is used for Carfax Abbey.

Richard Matheson’s screenplay and Oswald Morris’s cinematography are distinguished contributions. Matheson appears to have used several plot elements of Terence Fisher’s 1958 Hammer Films version of Dracula with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, then worked his way back towards the meat and details of Bram Stoker’s novel. Because it’s written in the form of journals, diaries and letters, it’s far from easy to conjure up a screenplay form it. This one does the job nicely.

Palance was offered the role of Dracula several more times after this but he turned all the offers down. As a Method actor, he felt that he was becoming Dracula more than he wanted and was glad to shake off the character when filming ended.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1728

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