Coming out on region 1 DVD at the end of February is Jess Franco’s Count Dracula, the maverick director’s 1970 attempt at Bram Stoker’s novel. Franco said that he wanted to make an entirely accurate make of the book and, in this, he failed – or so I have read. However it is a version of the book I have wanted to see for some time.
Why, you may ask. A look at the cast should tell you. Herbert Lom as Van Helsing and Klaus Kinski as Renfield should wet your appetite for the main course, Christopher Lee in his only non-Hammer appearance as the Count. (I have heard suggestion that Lee played Dracula in other, non-Hammer, films. Most notably "Uncle was a Vampire", in which he played a vampire but was not called Dracula and "Dracula and Son" in which his character, in the original, was simply called 'Prince of Darkness' and never refered to as Dracula).
The disc is listed as a Special Edition and the extras look interesting also, there is a Soledad Miranda essay, a Jess Franco featurette “Beloved Count” and, most interesting to me, Christopher Lee reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
The DVD is released on 27.02.07, my copy is pre-ordered!
Thursday, February 08, 2007
New to DVD: Jess Franco’s Count Dracula
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4 comments:
Very cool. I've never seen this.
Hi Dante, really looking forward to it myself - having never seen it eithe - but there is always the fear that it will be awful (I already know it will be flawed, it is Franco after all and as much as I enjoy his films they are all flawed!)
It's terrible, dears, but definitely not as mindboggling bad as THE BLOODY JUDGE, a Lee-Franco collaboration so hellishly sluggish and wooden it honestly made Edna want to blow chunks. The best scene in COUNT DRACULA features the most devastatingly unheimlich use of stuffed animals I've yet had the privilege of viewing...
Edna, its been awhile but always happy to see a comment from yourself.
I'll look forward to the stuffed animals! lol
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