Dracula (1973 film)
| Dracula | |
|---|---|
DVD cover
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| Genre | Horror |
| Written by | Richard Matheson |
| Directed by | Dan Curtis |
| Starring |
Jack Palance Simon Ward Nigel Davenport Pamela Brown Fiona Lewis Penelope Horner |
| Music by | Robert Cobert |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language(s) | English Hungarian |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Dan Curtis Robert Singer (associate producer) |
| Cinematography | Oswald Morris |
| Editor(s) | Richard A. Harris |
| Running time | 100 minutes |
| Production company(s) | Latglen Ltd. |
| Distributor | CBS |
| Release | |
| Original release | February 8, 1974 |
Dracula is a 1973 British television movie adaptation of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula written by Richard Matheson and directed by Dark Shadows creator Dan Curtis, with Jack Palance in the title role. It was the second collaboration for Curtis and Palance after the 1968 TV film The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
"Bistritz, Hungary May 1897": natives in Transylvania seem afraid when they learn solicitor Jonathan Harker is going to Castle Dracula. Jonathan shows up, and finds the Count abrupt and impatient to get things done. He reacts very strongly to a photograph of Harker's fiancée Mina and her best friend Lucy. After rescuing Harker from the Brides, he forces Harker to write a letter saying that he will be staying in Transylvania for a month. Harker climbs down the castle wall and finds Dracula's coffin, but is attacked and knocked out by one of Dracula's gypsy servants before he can stake Dracula. They later throw him in the lower levels of the crypt, where the Brides attack Harker...
The Demeter runs aground carrying only Dracula and the dead captain lashed to the wheel. Soon after, Lucy begins to fall ill. Her fiancé, Arthur Holmwood, is perplexed and calls in Dr. Van Helsing. The doctor begins to recognize what might be happening, especially after Lucy walks out of her home at Hillingham and is found, drained, under a tree the next morning. Dracula, meanwhile, has flashbacks about a time when he was alive, when his wife (who is also the dead image of Lucy) lay dead in her bed and men had to restrain Dracula in his grief and rage.
Lucy's mother is in the room with Mina when Dracula comes calling the last time, a wolf shattering the window. Lucy soon rises from the dead, and comes to the window of Arthur's home, begging to be let in. Arthur does so, delighted and amazed that she's alive, unaware that she is now a vampire under Dracula's control. This very nearly gets him bitten, but Van Helsing interrupts with a cross causing her to flee. They go to Lucy's grave and drive a wooden stake into her heart. When Dracula comes to the tomb later and beckons to her, he goes berserk upon finding that she's truly dead.
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