This cheap international production of Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula" is poorly conceived and poorly made in most ways, but it does have the draw of featuring two actors who played the titular role in other, better films, and is, thus, interesting for comparison. Christopher Lee had already played Dracula in the 1958 Hammer production and would continue to appear in the role in the studio's sequels. He again plays the Count here. Klaus Kinski would later play Dracula in Werner Herzog's remake of "Nosferatu" in 1979, and here he plays Renfield.Although championed as faithful to the book, as an adaptation, this "Dracula" features some bad deviations from Stoker's tale and in other ways is a poor imitation of prior "Dracula" films—especially the 1958 Hammer one. Although it adopts the gore and blood splatter from Hammer, it's, overall, a tamer version, and there's very little sex appeal here as opposed to some of the Hammer productions. This film also steals from the 1958 film the part where the Count lures Mina away, but adopts from the 1931 Universal picture the scenes of Dracula prowling the streets and entering a theatre. This stuff is absent from Stoker's original. Also absent from the book is Van Helsing's weird stroke, which in this film leaves him wheelchair bound and stuck at home with Mina while Quincy and Jonathan go to Transylvania. Also, in the final scenes, a fire motif is invented, with Van Helsing making a makeshift, fiery cross to ward off Dracula, and the Count is climactically burned to death in his coffin.There's a laughable scene involving taxidermic animals supposedly coming to life to threaten our heroes, some obvious dummy boulders in the climax, and the film makes the head-scratching mistake of trying to pass off docile German Shepherds as wolves. The fake bat gimmickry is far more tolerable by comparison. Overall, the main stylistic theme of director Franco's movie is an abundant reliance on zoom-ins.Lee and Kinski can't save this dull and ill-advised mess, but their characterizations are of some interest. Kinski as Renfield seems too true to art imitating life, as the actor really had been committed to a psychiatric hospital in years past, and his continued abnormal behavior was evidenced in his frequent-director Herzog's documentary "My Best Fiend" (1999). Unlike other portrayals of Renfield, Kinski plays him comatose, with occasional screaming and violent outbursts, including jumping out a window and choking Mina. Kinski's later stilted Nosferatu isn't that far removed from his Renfield, really, except his Dracula talks more and breaths heavier. Meanwhile, Lee got the opportunity to play a Count that is a somewhat closer approximation of Stoker's characterization than his Hammer iterations, although he still manages to play him mostly mute after his castle scenes. His mustached appearance and white-to- black hair transformation is closer to Stoker's description, too, than his wild-eyed sex beast in the '58 shocker.The final embarrassment is that the filmmakers of a documentary, "Cuadecuc vampire" (1971), of the making of this film, made a better movie.The next year, Franco made a looser, Sapphic Dracula adaptation, appropriately titled "Vampyros Lesbos" (1971).(Mirror Note: Contrary to the novel, Dracula has a wall mirror in his castle, which, for further inexplicable reasons, he points to in a scene with Jonathan—revealing to him his lack of a reflection. Although also contrary to the novel, a shadow disappearance shot is handled better later in the film.)

I was taken aback when I heard the Count (Christopher Lee) greet Jonathan Harker (Fred Williams) with the words "Children of the night, what music they make" upon hearing wolves howling in the distance beyond Castle Dracula. It took me back to the 1931, Bela Lugosi version of "Dracula", probably my favorite telling of the story, although this one followed the Bram Stoker novel a bit more faithfully. The picture has some great atmospherics but the filming is almost always too dark, which might explain the director's getting away with German Shepherds impersonating wolves in the Transylvania countryside.Klaus Kinski was a great choice for Renfield, whiling away the hours in his padded room and nibbling away at flies and other insects. It made me wonder why I haven't seen him in more horror flicks instead of Westerns. I guess I'll just have to keep a good eye out for more of his horror film work.And I guess I'm too used to seeing Christopher Lee in roles where he's older with white hair and beard because his black hair and youthful appearance wound up being a distraction, even though that was the point of Dracula's nightly excursions for fresh blood. The concept of Dracula's ability to transform into any type of animal also got a pretty good workout here, although in response to a character's statement that 'the bats were real', I have some news - no they weren't.But overall a generally acceptable picture in the Dracula canon. The Count puts the bite on a handful of characters including Harker, which leads one to consider one of the plot holes in the story. Harker finishes out the picture with no ill effects that otherwise would have made him a candidate for a stake through the heart.

I made the mistake of thinking this was a "Hammer" film, because I assumed that any vampire film with Christopher Lee must be one of those, but it is not. That's not to say this is a bad film by any means, because it's a rather decent film, but not great. The other stars include Herbert Lom, who was very good, Klaus Kinski, who was underused, Paul Muller, Maria Rohm, Soledad Miranda, Fred Williams, and Jack Taylor. A sad note is that Miranda(Lucy)was killed in a car accident in late 1970, only a few months after this film came out. Some of the good: grainy atmosphere, creepy music, and Lom's portrayal of Van Helsing. Some of the bad: the Count whispering "Lucy" too many times, no genuine scares, and the weak death of Dracula. I would recommend this film if you're really into the genre, but not if you're looking for real vampire chills. Let me add that I still consider this a decent enough film that had good moments that probably outweighed the bad, and I caught this film completely by chance.

Known in English simply as "Count Dracula", this is a very uninspired and rather badly made film. After the 1931 Bela Lugosi version, the 1958 Hammer version and the 1979 Frank Langella version, this is the fourth adaptation of the 1897 Bram Stoker novel that I have seen in the last ten months, notwithstanding the numerous sequels to the first two. Of those four, I understand that this is the most faithful to the novel - which I have never actually read - but it's also by far the weakest of them.The film's version of Dracula is not terribly intimidating. While Christopher Lee is good as the eponymous count, his performances in the Hammer series were far more entertaining. Herbert Lom made for a very good Van Helsing and he deserved to appear in a much better adaptation than this, though I preferred Peter Cushing and Laurence Olivier's takes on the character. None of the other actors made much impression one way or the other. I'm not entirely sure but I get the impression that most of them were dubbed. The film is rather low budget but that wouldn't have been a big problem if Jesus Franco had directed it with any sort of flair, art or imagination - all three of which were lacking in the extreme - rather than making every other shot a zoom shot. I assume that he had made a bet to see how many he could fit into the film. It's a bog standard version of "Dracula", I'm afraid. When it comes to great horror directors, he's no Terence Fisher, who directed the aforementioned 1958 film and most of the other top tier Hammer films.Overall, the film is deathly dull and mostly forgettable except for two things that I've already mentioned. It's always a pleasure to see either Lee or Lom in a film but it would have been a far greater pleasure to see them in a good film.