I pulled this movie out of a hat because Jack Palance is one of my favorite actors, of stage and screen, Westerns, horror and science fiction. He worked with Dark Shadows creator Dan Curtis with script by Richard Matheson. Wow, can't go wrong with this crew!
I've read that Matheson's script was more faithful to Stoker's book than other Drac films in the past, complete with Van Helsing (Nigel Davenport) stakes & crosses, et al.! On air date was Feb 1974.
Much of the plot is the same as in the Universal pictures, at first. Harker goes to the castle, greeted by a horseman (followed by German Shepards, however) and Dracula decides on Carfax Abbey, when he discovers it's near where Lucy lives, his long lost love from across the centuries.
Harker takes a large chunk of the film. He attempts escape but is pinned down by three female vamps and they make a quick snack of him.
In England, a very wise (and I think more mature than Anthony Hopkins in a later similar role) Van Helsing finds Lucy with the bite marks on her and does an all night vigil. Dracula though casts a spell of sleepiness on our gang and through his hypnotic glare coaxes Lucy out into the night.
He takes her tenderly and kisses her; and as she moans and groans in ecstasy, he flashes his fangs and with a somewhat look of disgust with himself, he tenderly bites her neck. Dan Curtis then does a fade out with that picture still lingering as we return to our hapless duo still sleeping, about to waken with the rising sun and discovering a missing Lucy.
They find her sitting in the meadow out in the front of the house, staring, lips parted, horror in her look. There's an attempt at a blood transfusion, Victorian style (yuk).
Dracula does not "transmogrify" (SP) into an animal but he has control over them, especially wolves and dogs to do his bidding, as shown in the zoo scene and tearing up the security guard there. Ouch.
Arthur is in the drawing room with Ms. Wisteria when a large dog jumps through the window and starts tearing him apart. She faints (hated that part) and he reaches for a gun -- BANG!
Switch to Lucy's bedroom and Dracula's appearance. Uh oh....
Arthur recovers from his swoon, the dog is dead. He runs out with the butler and Lucy is out in the garden staring into space -- quite realistically, I might add -- and very dead. Or so we think.
Suspenseful, but sanitized. Not a lot of blood but there is much build-up of action and suspense as only the master writer Matheson can put forth. Remember too this version is for TV only and so the violence is kept to a minimum. Palance's demeanor, height and forceful display of power incarnate makes him a perfect Dracula, even more so than Oldman, Frank Langella and on par with Christopher Lee!
The finding and staking of Lucy was a bit quick and amateurish, some plot holes like, how did Van Helsing get there in the nick of time (while Lucy was munching on Arthur's neck) when he was out of town earlier.
Anyway, Van Helsing begins his search for Dracula's coffin.
Dracula returns to Lucy's coffin, not suspecting that she's been having "stake" for dinner. When he finds her in this impaled state, he flies into fits of Grief! He holds her tenderly and cries and weeps -- quite unexpected. And a very fast flashback to when at Castle Dracula, he had to be dragged from his beloved, dead Maria.
Fits of rage, flying cement, coffins and statues and bones as Drac tears apart the mausoleum.
Van Helsing wants to put the rest of the family at the George Motel, however they have an unexpected carriage following them -- Dracula! He begins to stalk the rest of the family, starting with Mina, obviously in revenge for the staking of his girlfriend.
His presence has been compromised. He chokes to death one hotel employee, another runs to a room and pulls out a gun and shoots him! Sorry, already dead -- tosses him out a third story window -- quite dramatically!
Dracula, cool and calm makes his escape, after beating up several employees.
The interesting part is how Van Helsing and Arthur research the "mystery ship" with boxes of earth "for experimental purposes" and trace down the whereabouts of the earth and thereby the Count. I've not seen a Drac film do this before: put so much time into the searching for the coffin, and in a very difficult manner. At this point, being a horror movie is secondary to being a detective mystery -- some viewers may not mind this and some may.
Discovering that he is probably holed up at Carfax, Dan Curtis cuts to the manor, sharp angled camera, looking up at Collinwood -- oops, at Carfax!
They discover the 9 boxes of earth (it's daytime, fortunately) but where's the tenth? More looking ensues.
They return to the George Hotel (where Drac had been tossing employees out windows and down staircases). The ladies have returned to their house! Figures!
Dan Curtis flashes back to this house; dark, women in low cut nightgowns -- perfect for a vampire.
The tilted camera again, red-lit hallway, butler with a gun. Oh boy!
As the butler searches the hallway and goes up the stairs, there's a decided lack of music, a silence except for the falling footsteps -- adds a chill and a mystery to the scene. I'm expecting the sudden noise any second. The music returns with Drac as the butler pumps a few bullets into the undead.
Drac busts through the door; Mina acts scared but the gal they got for Ms. Wisteria is a fairly poor actress and takes away from the scene -- you can tell she's acting and doesn't feel it at all. A pity, as it was an otherwise good scene.
Van Helsing and Arthur gallop to the rescue.
The confrontation: "So you decide to pit your wits against mine, who commanded armies before you were born!" Love lines like that.
He cuts himself, forces Mina to drink his blood, declares her a slave and leaves. Ghastly.
Drac returns to Carfax and discovers Van Helsing's work -- all the boxes of earth have been burned -- Curtis puts in a strange sound effect here, as Dracula screams and holds his hands out, cape flying. Quite dramatic, but didn't need that sound effect.
Through hypnosis, they find that Drac is returning home to Transylvania.
After some time and adventure, they find the castle and the box. Actually the boxes of this three female vamps, which Van Helsing stakes all three with a bit more enthusiasm than I expected.
Ooops, sunset!
Jonathan Harker jumps out of nowhere as a VAMPIRE, surprisingly enough. I don't remember that happening in other versions of Stoker's novel but it's certainly imaginative. They dispatch Harker rather quickly.
Mina meantime gets scared of crosses that burn her hand at a touch.
Meantime, Van Helsing continues his search to it's final end. Nice adaptation -- Palance puts a lot of emotion and sly arrogance into his role that I've only seen in Frank Langella and Christopher Lee. It's unfortunate for the viewer that this was Palance's only Dracula film.
DVD:
A bit on the dark side on my screen, colors fairly vivid, especially the blood.
Bonus material includes an interview by Jack Palance, (twenty years after production and he still has not watched it); Dan Curtis interview and European trailer.
The Jack Palance interview was quite enlightening and surprising. He said Dracula was the only character that "I ever played that frightened me." He said he was offered Dracula several times but that "once was enough!"
Dan Curtis created Dark Shadows and the sympathetic vampire Barnabas Collins of Collinwood in the late 1960s/early 1970s. He said he didn't like the reasoning for Stoker's Dracula character to go to England, and decided to inject a little bit of Dark Shadows into the mix: let's have the vampire discover that his lover of the 15th century is currently reincarnated and living in England.
Dan said he wanted to bring a sense of sympathy to the character. And in this he succeeds in spades (or in stakes).
And see Fandango's filmography of Palance through the Fandango website.
These include the forgettable Alone in the Dark (1982) and the ever popular B-movie Torture Garden (1967) and that B-Film favorite Black Cobra Woman (1976)!
Torture Garden
Black Cobra Woman
Alone in the Dark
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Expedited Available
"There is No Way in this Life to Stop Me! Jack Palance's Dracula!"