Dracula (1979 film)

Plot

In Whitby, Yorkshire in 1913, Count Dracula arrives from Transylvania on the ship Demeter during a storm. Mina Van Helsing, visiting her friend Lucy Seward, discovers and rescues Dracula after his ship runs aground. The Count visits the household of Lucy's father, Dr. Jack Seward, whose clifftop mansion also houses an asylum. At dinner, Dracula charms the hosts, especially Lucy, but Jonathan Harker, Lucy's fiancé, is less impressed.

Later that night, Dracula descends upon Mina to drink her blood. The next morning, Lucy finds Mina struggling for breath and watches her die, noticing wounds on her throat. Dr. Seward calls in Mina's father, Professor Abraham Van Helsing, who suspects vampirism. They discover a clawed opening in Mina's coffin leading to local mines, where they encounter the undead Mina, and Van Helsing destroys her.

Lucy, summoned to Carfax Abbey, offers herself as Dracula's bride. After a wedding night sequence, Lucy becomes infected. The doctors give her a blood transfusion, but she remains under Dracula's spell.

Production

The film's script follows the stage version by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston, which had a Broadway run starring Frank Langella. Langella earned a Tony nomination for Best Actor in a Play for that role. The play, set in the Edwardian era with striking designs by Edward Gorey, lasted over 900 performances from October 1977 to January 1980. Langella also performed it for a limited time in London's West End.

The stage production swapped the names of the characters Mina Harker and Lucy Westenra. When asked why the film did the same, director John Badham couldn't fully explain, but guessed he and writer W. D. Richter thought Mina was a dull name and Lucy sounded nicer. Filming took place in England at Shepperton Studios and Black Park in Buckinghamshire. Cornwall locations stood in for Whitby exteriors, Tintagel for Dr. Seward's asylum, and St Michael's Mount for Carfax Abbey.

Castle Dracula was a glass matte painting by Albert Whitlock. Gilbert Taylor handled cinematography, and John Williams wrote the score. Langella saw Dracula as a forceful, erotic figure offering sexual freedom and immortality. He aimed to portray a vulnerable, lonely man capable of love, not a cold or authoritarian monster.

Reception

In 1979, three Dracula films were released: this film, Werner Herzog's Nosferatu the Vampyre, and the comedy Love at First Bite. The success of Love at First Bite may have affected this version's reception. The film opened at number one at the US box office with $3,141,281 from 455 theaters, but grossed $20,158,970 domestically, seen as a disappointment by the studio. Roger Ebert gave 3.5 out of 4 stars, calling it an elegantly seen Dracula that restores the character to the purity of its first film appearances. Janet Maslin of The New York Times noted the film had style to spare but found the pace pointless and taxing. Leonard Maltin gave 1.5 out of 4 stars, describing it as murky with Langella's Broadway interpretation sabotaged by horror gimmicks and ill-conceived changes to the novel.

Home video

The film made Variety's All-Time Horror Rentals in 1993 but fell into relative obscurity due to limited video release outside the US. The 1979 theatrical version looks different from later prints; for a 1991 widescreen laserdisc, the director altered color timing to desaturate the look. Badham had intended to shoot in black and white, but Universal objected, and cinematographer Gilbert Taylor shot in warm golden colors. The original version was not widely screened after the 1980s. In 2018, a fan edit restored theatrical color timing, prompting an official release in 2019. Shout! Factory released a Blu-ray in July 2019 with the desaturated Director's Edition and the original Theatrical Version. In November 2020, Black Hill Pictures and KOCH Media released a restored cinema edition with the 1979 color version on Region B/2 Blu-ray.