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Post by RedKing on Oct 5, 2006 9:09:11 GMT -8
To celebrate Halloween, I’m having a month long Universal festival by watching all the Legacy Collection box sets. I started appropriately enough at the beginning with the 1931 DRACULA starring Bela Lugosi. I watched it with the Philip Glass score that was composed and added to the otherwise musicless film in 1999. The score was good as something to just listen too-it’s played by the Kronos Quartet which is all strings, but I didn’t feel it really punctuated what was happening on screen. I also found it distracting for 2 reasons-the first was that the score was recorded in stereo while the original dialogue was not so in many scenes the music is louder than the dialogue, and the second was that I’ve seen this film so many times that I basically know it by heart(as I do with most of the Universal films) so hearing the film that I’m so familiar with with the new music behind it made it sound to me like trying to watch TV with the radio on at the same time, the music just didn’t belong there to me. As for the movie itself, well, the opening at Dracula’s castle is great and the later confrontation between Van Helsing and Dracula where Drac tries to hypnotise the doc is also superb, but the rest of the film is rather slow paced and suffers from a static camera, making mush of it seem stage bound and theatrical. However, this film is simply so important as almost everything we now associate with “scary movies” originates here-gothic castles, bats, spiderwebs, it all starts here. And of course Lugosi IS Dracula, plus Edward Van Sloan as Van Helsing and Dwight Frye as Renfield are also great. In the extras there is a nice 30-40 minute documentary on the film that was filmed around 1999 when the first dvd of this movie was put out(in fact all of the Legacy Collection documentaries originate from the first 1999 dvd releases) that is hosted by Carla Laemmle, Universal Pictures founder Carl Laemmle’s niece who is also in the film at the very beginning as a passenger in the couch with Renfield. I saw that universal has just put out a brand new 2 disc set for this called the 75th Anniversary Edition that looks great-it has a new transfer of the film, which is probably a good idea as the print here looks a bit dark. This new release has all the old extras plus brand new documentaries on Lugosi, a new audio commentary and the 1998 TCM documentary UNIVERSAL HORROR, that should actually have been titled 1930;s Horror as it covers all the horror films of the 30s from every studio and basically glosses over the 40s! It’s still a great documentary though, with interviews with people involved in the films who were still living at the time and a new musical score by Hammer’s great James Bernard(though his music would have been better suited to a Hammer doc!).
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Post by Xenorama ™ on Oct 7, 2006 23:34:04 GMT -8
does this have the Spanish version with it?
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Post by amphiboid on Oct 8, 2006 5:41:47 GMT -8
The Legacy Collection of Dracula has the Spanish version, yeah...I rented it a while back and really enjoyed the heck out of that...!
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Post by Giganfan on Oct 15, 2006 10:20:56 GMT -8
Yeah, Dracula is simply one of the greatest horror films ever made, partly by default, but also because it had a great director and cinematographer. Tod Browning was never a flashy director, so his camera merely captures the drama and horror as it unfolds. There are scenes through-out the movie that are punctuated with no sound, give it a very creepy and menacing vibe. Bela Lugosi was never scarier. What amazes me is that all of these people that grew up watching this movie, knowing it by heart, loving it and gleefully reciting lines from, basically rip it apart today. "Oh, in hindsight it's not a good movie," or "Lugosi is a ham, he doesn't have the acting chops that Karloff has," and all that crap. Personally, I think that when given the chance, Lugosi could act circles around Karloff. And even though Dracula is not a perfect film (it's basically Browning filming a stage play), its redeeming factors far outweigh its shortcomings.
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Post by Lunkhead on Oct 30, 2006 20:10:10 GMT -8
I must respectfully disagree. I feel both Karloff and Lugosi were terrific actors in their own right.
Lugosi was treated unfairly by the industry and not given much opportunity to move beyond the horror genre. That is sad, because he really had a lot to offer. In one interview, he mentioned how much he enjoyed comedy and wished he could have done more. When you look at ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN, his Count Dracula is very menacing at times (ala the House of Horrors scenes, putting the bite on Sandra, etc). Then in that group conversation in the castle, he's absolutely hilarious with lines like, "Ah you young people, making the most of life... while it lasts." He could have played aristocratic parts in drama and comedy very effectively. I've never seen BROADMINDED (1930), but I hear he's really good in it. Even in his poverty row outings, he always tried to give a good performance and often he's the best thing about those films. For me, Bela is Dracula. Always has been and always will be. I believe his iconic performance will continue to be remembered as the definitive Dracula. His Ygor in SON OF FRANKENSTEIN is excellent and very different. Other great roles are in WHITE ZOMBIE, ISLAND OF LOST SOULS (small, but great appearance), VOODOO MAN, THE BLACK CAT and THE RAVEN.
Karloff was allowed to expand much more from the genre, but in the end, he too had to accept being first and foremost a horror star. Boris seems to be remembered most for his great Frankenstein monster, but his performance in THE BODY SNATCHER (1945) is fantastic too and among his best. (Though Bela's role is small in this, the big scene with Lugosi and Karloff is unforgettable). Boris received rave reviews when he appeared on stage in ARSENIC AND OLD LACE, but unfortunately was not in the film version. If there's any doubt to Boris' acting ability, one should view the recently released gothic film THE BLACK ROOM (1935) (part of the Icons of Horror box set). He is awesome as a pair of twins, one good, and the other evil. The scenes where he's on screen as both characters are extremely well done and this forgotten film is a real gem. Other memorable Karloff roles are found in THE WALKING DEAD, THE APE (yes, The Ape!), BEDLAM, THE OLD DARK HOUSE, ISLE OF THE DEAD, TOWER OF LONDON, BLACK SABBATH and HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS. His pairings with Bela are especially enjoyable and I wish they would have done more together. There was a special chemistry there, accenting each other.
I do think that liking one more than the other is just a matter of taste. For me, Boris is my favorite with Bela a close second, but I love them both and hold their mutual abilities in high regard. I can watch any film in which either appear and enjoy it, if only just to see my two favorite guys.
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