count dracula

THE FLICK: As a director, Jess Franco doesn’t just cut corners, he massacres them! It’s one of his most identifying traits as a Euro-trash auteur. Over the course of his career – which must span nearly 200 films under various aliases – Franco never seemed to have a budget larger than your average 8-year-old with a Handy Cam. So circumstances demanded severe compromises. Of course, these are the sort of challenges all filmmakers face. But Franco’s “quantity over quality” approach set the standard for exploitation cinema, excusing any number of onscreen gaffes and goofs as long as there were enough boobs and blood to provide a distraction. A lesser director might have hung his head in shame, but Franco simply continued to shoot, pumping out movie after movie and often turning a tidy profit for his producers. The DVD format has been particularly kind to Franco, polishing a numbers of turds into shiny special editions that almost convince you the guy had some talent. He doesn’t, just to make things perfectly clear. But like any filmmaker who amasses a body of work this large, there are bound to be a few moments of inspiration...even if he stumbles into them by accident. Venus in Furs is one. His latter-day soft-core effort Macumba Sexual is another. And finally the director’s 1970 adaptation of Count Dracula, with Christopher Lee reprising his role while concurrently playing the Prince of Darkness in Hammer’s long-running franchise. Working with producer Harry Alan Towers (who funded the duo’s previous collaborations, a series of tepid Fu Manchu films), Franco convinced the actor to don the cape and fangs again by dangling a particularly tempting carrot: “We shoot the book the way it was written, not another half-assed adaptation.” Lee’s ego couldn’t resist the opportunity to wax Shakespearean since the Hammer films had essentially turned Dracula into a deaf-mute. So the production got under way with a pair of other prestigious actors coming on board (Herbert Lom as Van Helsing and Klaus Kinski as Renfield); of course, not all at the same time. For a film that seems to have been shot in bits and pieces (Lee, Lom and Kinski were never in the same room), Count Dracula is one of Franco’s more cohesive efforts. The story clings closely to the structure of Bram Stoker’s novel, introducing the idea of Dracula aging in reverse for the first time on film, and retaining most of the main characters. There are a few dramatic departures, like an impromptu attack by stuffed wild animals, made up by Franco on the spot and reminiscent of a similar sequence in Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead 2. But by and large, Count Dracula is a chaste and predictable film from a director known for being anything but; there’s only one short spurt of blood and zero nudity. Combine those facts with a very TV-friendly 1:33:1 aspect ratio, and one can only assume that the film was made with potential television broadcasts in mind (although it’s never mentioned in the extras). But the one true flourish Franco stumbles upon is the film’s uniquely somnambulant tone, almost trance-like with numerous long sequences bereft of either dialogue or musical score (reflecting the director’s admiration of Tod Browning’s original). Like some of Franco’s other more psychedelia-tinged experiments, this is a film that you simply lose yourself in, with a tenuous sense of time and space. Not enough to completely gloss over German Shepards passed off as wolves, bats dangling from strings or copious camera shadows. But still, an accomplishment that stands out in Franco’s oeuvre. THE FEATURES: Dark Sky Film’s very first Franco effort is a solid one, although the transfer seems to be only as good as its source materials; meaning a fair share of dirt, fine lines and a hair or two. But Franco is there to tell is like it is on Beloved Count, a 30-minute featurette that covers most of the casting and challenges faced on the film. With cigarette in hand, the director rips off some interesting stories, even going out of his way to insult Hammer Films and Coppola’s take on the classic character. Christopher Lee contributes by way of an audio-book style reading of Bram Stoker’s novel. Complete with sound effects and musical cues, this is an hour-and-a-half of geek heaven played out over a montage of still shots and poster art. There are more stills presented separately in a gallery section. And a Soledad Miranda Essay fills in some gaps about the Andalusian actress career and tragic death.