Count Dracula (1977)
| Count Dracula | |
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Louis Jourdan as Count Dracula
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| Directed by | Philip Saville |
| Produced by | Morris Barry |
| Written by | Gerald Savory |
| Starring |
Louis Jourdan Frank Finlay Susan Penhaligon Judi Bowker Jack Shepherd |
| Music by | Kenyon Emrys-Roberts |
| Edited by | Richard Bedford (film inserts) Rod Waldron (videotape) |
| Distributed by | BBC |
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Release date
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Running time
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155 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
Count Dracula is a British television adaptation of the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. Produced by the BBC (in the then standard video/film hybrid format), it first aired on BBC 2 on 22 December 1977. It is among the more faithful of the many adaptations of the original book. Directed by Philip Saville, it stars Louis Jourdan as Count Dracula and Frank Finlay as Van Helsing.
Lucy Westenra's sister Mina bids farewell to her fiancé Jonathan Harker, who is leaving for a business trip. Harker, a solicitor, is travelling to Count Dracula's castle in Transylvania to expedite his purchase of Carfax Abbey and other properties in England.
At the door of the castle, Count Dracula himself welcomes Jonathan. Abandoned by superstitious locals, Harker was forced to accept a lift there from an anonymous passing coachman. Jonathan agrees to stay for a month to help the Count with his English. Dracula is urbane and gracious, but also vaguely sinister, and casts no reflection. After a series of disturbing events, Harker explores the castle, finds the Count asleep in a coffin, and tries (ineffectually) to kill him with a shovel.
In England, Mina and Lucy go to the seaside town of Whitby. Among their friends are Quincey Holmwood (Lucy's American fiancé), and Dr. John Seward, who owns a local asylum. Among Seward's patients is the madman Renfield, who worships and fears Dracula. Mina and Lucy witness a storm in which the foreign ship 'Demeter' goes aground, and later a local is found dead. Mina follows a sleepwalking Lucy to the local graveyard and glimpses Dracula holding her in his arms. Lucy thereafter grows pale and weak; at night in her bedroom, Dracula drinks her blood. Jonathan meanwhile turns up delirious and weak in a convent in Budapest.
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