COUNT DRACULA (1970) was recommended on the Herbsolistzhl website blog which is the home of the right honorable Bret M. Herholz, he of the 19th Century and currently trying to find his way around the 21st century, and I'd seen a few minutes of it years before and thought it was way too dry for me, but thanks to a random showing on the new MOVIES Channel on Halloween I caught it and it was really pretty good.
It's very faithful to Stoker's story-- more faithful in fact than any other film adaption I've ever seen, more faithful than my adaption. Stoker described Dracula as an old man with a long white moustache in the book and the vampire gets younger as the story goes on, likely because of the blood he's drinking.
My only problem with the film is the same problem I have with the book-- Dracula is kind of a loser. He lives alone and pretends to have a lot of servants at his disposal. He runs off at the first sign of the vampire hunters gaining ground, and his intentions on London are not really spelled out.
But still-- this was a good adaption of the story-- even with a very limited budget, although it stands head and shoulders above every other Dracula film of the 1970s and there were quite a few.
Check it out-- it's quite good.
