Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula" is many things, but a romance novel it's not. It's got religion, but not the kind involving the transmigration of souls to identical bodies separated by centuries. It has a sense of history, which includes a couple sentences of Van Helsing's semi-ambiguous speculation that the immortal vampire may've once been "that Voivode Dracula" who fought the Turks, but it's not about, nor significantly inspired by (except the title), the historical Vlad the Impaler. This 1974 TV movie, speciously titled "Bram Stoker's Dracula," as with the later 1992 theatrically-released movie of the same name, is about those things which Stoker's "Dracula" is not about. What it adapts from Stoker is mostly superficially done and sometimes incompetently so.
Exaggerating and expanding on the connection between the vampire and Vlad within a reincarnation romance, turning Stoker's Gothic horror novel into a silly love story seems to have been a bad idea whose time had come. There had been some recent popular books in the early 1970s on the Prince of Wallachia in relation to Stoker. And, vampires were already being turned into romance figures in film and TV, including in the reincarnation romance of the Dracula-related blaxploitation flick "Blacula" (1972), as well as in the "Dark Shadows" series, a TV soap opera, which was also turned into two films and which was created by this TV-movie Dracula's director-producer, Dan Curtis. Unfortunately, these threads, the historical and romantic, have pervaded most subsequent big Dracula movies, from the love-sick "Nosferatu" remake and the dime-novel-like Universal reiteration, both of 1979, to Francis Ford Coppola's aforementioned 1992 rip-off, to the ahistorical "Dracula Untold" (2014).
Like Hammer's 1958 "Dracula," Jonathan Harker's role is reduced to his stay at Castle Dracula, and the later part of the film focuses on the investigation duo of Van Helsing and Arthur Holmwood. Also like Hammer's productions, the cast is full of Brits; except, here, the dangerous foreigner Dracula is portrayed by an American, the soft-spoken Jack Palance (also the physically-strongest Drac since Lon Chaney Jr. in "Son of Dracula" (1943)). It's a bit amusing, considering the many Hollywood movies casting Brits in roles for foreigners across the world, to see the same thing done in reverse across the pond, for this originally-British TV movie. Inexplicably, Harker also encounters a Russian couple en route to the Count's Transylvanian abode. Like Jesus Franco's poor 1970 international Dracula, the filmmakers laughably try to pass off German Shepherds as wolves. This one even features a hopeless attempt, by quick editing and silly hairstyling, to pass one of these pups off as a wolf attacking Arthur. Almost as ridiculous is the poorly-acted fainting of Lucy's mother during the episode (in the book, this killed her).
The limits of a TV-movie budget and imagination also results in a slow pace emphasizing supposed tension building at the expense of actual action. That only a ticking clock can be heard in some of Arthur's interior scenes, as he keeps watch over Lucy, doesn't help--in the same spirit, they should've added just crickets chirping for the counter shots of Dracula standing outside. There are also the then-typical TV zooming and lengthy dissolves, including the clichéd wavy ones for flashback montages of Vlad and his sweetheart. There are some canted angles that become un-canted. And there's some obvious cheating going on in the edits between exterior views of Drac's impressive castle and Carfax Abbey and the unexpectedly small interiors. Much of which could've been overlooked if the adaptation were more interesting than a reincarnation romance, or if it evidenced any competent reworking of the familiar story.
Harker's carriage ride to Borgo Pass, for instance, fails to foreshadow the horror of Dracula due to the absence of apparent fear from the locals. When Harker cuts himself shaving, Palance's restrained bloodlust merely manifests as an expression of constipation. Instead, this Dracula throws a hissy fit when he finds his lost-love, un-dead Lucy with stake in her heart. Oblivious to the sexual implications of the blood-transfusion business in Stoker's novel, here, the maid, in a bit part, donates the blood rather than Lucy's suitors. Worst of all, but all too typical of Dracula movies, is the reduced role for Mina, who was the main hero and surrogate storyteller of Stoker's novel. This time, she provides a couple clues to detectives Van Helsing and Arthur regarding Dracula's identity and location, but her character is otherwise sidelined for the male heroics. Apparently, she's of so little importance, that Van Helsing, otherwise inexplicably, drops his cross and allows Dracula to feed her his breast blood--thus threatening her with vampirism. And they don't even pronounce her name correctly! Unlike the 1992 film, since Lucy is Dracula's reincarnated love, it's also unclear why the Count attacks Mina at all. But, then, this is the same vampire who has a pit of stakes and another pointy torture device in his basement. Logic is not his strong suit. Why not replace his ceilings with skylights while he's at it and decorate his coffin with crucifixes and garlic.
On the plus side, this TV production did manage a decent painting of Vlad and Lucy. And the main reason I didn't rate the movie lower is because there are a couple shots that are staged as painterly tableaus--even using the TV zooming to some advantage. The first is the dead, cross-baring seaman tied to the ship's helm, with the shot zooming in on Dracula on the beach in the background. This is a nice, economical transition to the Count's move to England; something that would've also benefited the 1977 TV version. The second and final shot of the movie wraps up the narrative nicely with a zoom-in on the painting. Unfortunately, it's followed by red ahistorical text restating the point in the blunt fashion that pervades this TV production.
(Mirror Note: Another failure of Harker's shaving scene is that it includes a mirror, but Dracula's lack of a reflection isn't addressed.)
