Count Dracula (1977 film)
A faithful BBC adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel.
The BBC produced this television adaptation of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel *Dracula*, which aired on BBC 2 on 22 December 1977. Philip Saville directed it from a script by Gerald Savory, with Louis Jourdan in the title role and Frank Finlay as Professor Abraham Van Helsing. It is considered one of the more faithful screen versions of the original book.
The story begins with solicitor Jonathan Harker traveling alone to Count Dracula’s castle in Transylvania to finalize the Count’s purchase of Carfax Abbey and other English properties. On the last leg of his journey, a fellow passenger warns Harker against going to the castle and gives him a crucifix for protection. He is dropped at the Borgo Pass at night and picked up by Dracula’s coach. At the castle, Dracula welcomes him and easily carries a heavy trunk up to his room. Harker reluctantly agrees to stay a month. Dracula is polite but has sharp fingernails, hair on his palms, and no reflection. After an encounter with Dracula’s brides, Harker finds the Count sleeping alone in a coffin with his eyes open, seemingly unaware of him. He tries to kill Dracula with a shovel but fails because the Count is not in the coffin at that moment, then flees.
In England, Mina and her sister Lucy go to Whitby. Their friends include Lucy’s American fiancé Quincey Holmwood and Dr. John Seward, who runs a local asylum. One of Seward’s patients, R. M. Renfield, both worships and fears Dracula. Mina and Lucy witness a storm that drives the ship *Demeter* aground, carrying Dracula (in wolf form) and wooden boxes of his native soil. That night, a local seaman is found dead from a vampire attack. Mina follows a sleepwalking Lucy to a graveyard and sees Dracula embracing her. Lucy grows pale and weak; Dracula drinks her blood in her bedroom on several occasions. Meanwhile, Harker turns up delirious and exhausted at a convent in Budapest.
Seward calls his friend Abraham Van Helsing from Amsterdam to help with Lucy’s strange illness. Van Helsing recognizes the symptoms and wards her bedroom with garlic, but a wolf smashes the window. The shock kills Lucy’s mother, and Lucy is found nearly dead after another encounter with Dracula. Despite Van Helsing’s efforts, she dies, but not before showing signs of vampirism—no reflection, seductiveness, and aggression when Holmwood visits her final moments.
Quick Facts
- Based On
- Dracula / by Bram Stoker
- Writer
- Gerald Savory
- Director
- Philip Saville
- Starring
- Louis Jourdan / Frank Finlay / Susan Penhaligon / Judi Bowker / Mark Burns / Jack Shepherd
- Music
- Kenyon Emrys-Roberts
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Language
- English
- Producer
- Morris Barry
- Editor
- Richard Bedford (film inserts) / Rod Waldron (videotape)
- Runtime
- 155 minutes
- Network
- BBC 2
- Released
- 1977-12-22
Facts from the source article.
Lore & Background
The production was a BBC television adaptation of the 1897 novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. Louis Jourdan's casting surprised critics, but director Philip Saville explained in the Radio Times that he saw Dracula as 'a romantic, sexually dashing anti-hero in the tradition of those figures usually dreamed up by women... Rochester, Heathcliff... figures that can overpower a strong heroine, inhuman figures that can't be civilised.' Jourdan said of playing Dracula, 'What is so interesting in playing Dracula is that I try to make monstrosity, or, if you prefer, villainy, attractive, very attractive... He is an angel, a fallen angel. I think Dracula should be played as an extremely kind person, who truly believes he is doing good.'
Reader's Guide
Count Dracula (1977) is noted for its fidelity to Stoker's novel and has received mostly positive critical reaction. Film historian Stuart Galbraith IV called it 'one of the best-ever adaptations of Bram Stoker's novel' despite 'a couple of missteps,' praising the cast, especially Frank Finlay and Louis Jourdan. Critic Steve Calvert agreed it was 'one of the better versions' and 'perhaps even the best,' highlighting Finlay's Van Helsing and Jack Shepherd's Renfield. David J. Skal, in his book Hollywood Gothic, called it 'the most careful adaptation of the novel to date, and the most successful.' Some critics, however, found the special effects dated and the production visually uninteresting. The adaptation was originally broadcast as a single 155-minute program on BBC 2, later split into episodes for repeats.
Did You Know?
- The film was originally shown on BBC 2 in its entirety (155 minutes) on 22 December 1977.
- Louis Jourdan said he tried to make Dracula 'an extremely kind person, who truly believes he is doing good.'
- The adaptation includes the character Quincey Holmwood as Lucy Westenra's American fiancé.
- In the United States, it aired as part of PBS's Great Performances anthology series starting 1 March 1978.
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