Lively, entertaining reviews of, and essays on, old and newer films and everything relating to them, written by professional author William Schoell.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

COUNT DRACULA

Christopher Lee
COUNT DRACULA  (1970). Director: Jess Franco [Jesus Franco].

This is probably not the worst movie directed by prolific Spanish hack Jess Franco, but it's still not very good. It is purported to be a [fairly] faithful adaptation of Bram Stoker's "Dracula" with Lee playing the Count [and having more dialogue than he did in his first appearance as the vampire in the superior Horror of Dracula] and Herbert Lom as Professor Van Helsing, now running a clinic in which Renfield (Klaus Kinski) is one of the patients. Lawyer Jonathan Harker (German actor Fred Williams) pays a call on the count, barely escapes from him; discovers that Lucy (Soledad Miranda), a friend of his fiancee Mina's Maria Rohm), is suffering from some sort of blood disease; and so on. Lee (although he seems a bit bored at times) and Lom are fine, but the movie, told in a straight-forward but tedious manner, has absolutely no style and doesn't hold the attention.

Verdict: Watch Horror of Dracula or the original Dracula with Lugosi instead. *1/2.

2 comments:

CavedogRob said...

Ha! I think it's about the best movie Franco ever directed! Lol!

William said...

Sadly, you're probably right!