[music] Well, opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one. I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like this before. You know, what was this? I'm kind of mad at you. [music] Well, good morning, good evening, good afternoon. Wherever you are in the world, whatever time you're listening to this, welcome to another episode of the Punching Up Movie podcast, where two long-standing friends pick a movie that is a knowledge classic, a core classic, or just something that's very, very popular. One of us has an issue with it, it takes a swing, and the other one maybe defends it, maybe joins in and gives it a double punch in the face. And today's subject is Bram Stoker's Dracula, the 1991 late flowering masterpiece from Francis Ford Coppola, one of the kings of the Hollywood New Wave in the 1970s. So what we normally do is we normally do a brief synopsis, be quite easy with this one, because it's Dracula, and a little bit of background information, and then we just sort of get in the ring, bell sounds, and we just start swinging. So the plot of Dracula, I think most of you will hopefully be familiar with, and Bram Stoker's Dracula doesn't really deviate too much from the plot. You have Count Dracula, who in this instance, we have a little prologue explaining his origins as a transylvanian warlord fighting the Turks for God, and he goes out, kills loads of Turks and pails them. And then the Turks who are being defeated in battle play a horrible trick on him, and they shoot an arrow into his beautiful fiancé's fortress, giving her a note basically saying that he's been killed in battle. She commits suicide, and there's a consequence because it's a very religious country. His soul is damned, Vlad, the warrior now Vlad, the impaler, because he's impaled lots of Turks, goes absolutely bonkers, and does he kill a priest? I can't remember if he kills a priest, but he certainly stabs a priest's effect to announce his god, and his soul is damned, and then he becomes Dracula. Jump forward to the late 19th century, and you have Jonathan Parker, played by Keanu Reeves, sent to a Count Dracula to conduct a business deal to buy some property in London. He's imprisoned by Dracula. Dracula comes to London having seen his, you know, Jonathan Parker's picture of his fiancé, Mina, goes back, terrorizes London, terrorizes Mina's friends, and forms a kind of romantic attachment with Mina in the middle of killing people, vampirizing Sadie Frost. Abraham Van Helsing, the great vampire hunters, wanted to deal with him, and then there's a bit of a Scooby-gan form, the original Scooby-gan form, around Van Helsing, and they track and try and kill Dracula all the time while he's obsessing, and this is where the movie sort of deviates from the normal orthodoxy, obsessing over Winona Ryder, who he believes is his reincarnated lost love. And then, you know, the normal vampire fighting shenanigans in shoe and climax in a Transylvanian confrontation where two lost loves are reunited amidst lots of blood, are cutting, and decapitation. That felt like a bit of a cack-handed synopsis of the very very... I think you missed it. I think you gave yourself the brief, and then you just got rid of brief, and just told us the whole story, but that's okay. Sorry, yeah. You don't know the story of Dracula now, like, under what rock have you been living? I'm Damien, by the way, and my co-host who just introduced us is... Adam, Nightingale from England. Hi, I'm here in sunny Sydney at the moment. Yeah, Dracula, you suggested Dracula. I don't remember having so much of a problem with it, but I don't think I've seen it since '90... Did it come out in 1991? '91, yeah, so that's a fair few years. Yeah, '92, I think. I haven't seen it since then. Yeah, I mean, a little bit of background, I suppose, to the film. It came about, ultimately, because Winona Ryder was meant to be in the Godfather III, playing Mary Corleone, the part that Francis Ford Coppola's daughter Sophia Coppola ended up playing. Winona Ryder had come off the back of five films back-to-back, the last one being Mermaids with Cher, and she was suffering from absolute exhaustion. I think she'd flown to, I would say, like, Rome or somewhere where they were meeting at first, and yeah, she couldn't get out of the hotel room, apparently, and so Johnny Depp sent a message to Francis Coppola saying it's not happening. She can't come, and she kind of bowed out of the film. I think she obviously felt guilty about that. When was the Godfather III made? I think it was released in 1990 or '91. I think it was. Okay, so a couple of years later, she gets in touch with Coppola, and she brings him the script for an adaptation of Dracula by Michael Apted. No, it's by James Thee Hart. Michael Apted was originally attached to director. Right, that's right, okay. It was going to be called Vampires in the Mist, right? I don't know, but... No, I'm joking. My girl is in the Mist. Of course, yes. That's my job. I'm firing a water cylinder this morning. Yes, that's right. So, yeah, Michael Apted was going to direct in. It was going to be a TV movie. It probably would have just come and gone and, you know, not really done anything. So the Francis Coppola had always liked the book. Apparently, he'd read it to some kids at some account back in the day. He said, she told me that she loved this Dracula script that was very much like the book. You know, a faithful adaptation. And then I thought, well, Dracula was written at the same time as cinema was invented. What if I made Dracula much in the way that the earliest cinema practitioners would have? You know, making a thing that is, in fact, what it's also about. Francis Ford Coppola said that. So I think that was the hook that made him decide to make this film. The fact that he could just kind of use a lot of those techniques that were used back then. And that, to be honest with you, I think, is probably the most interesting part of it, the film. I think knowing that, and I did watch the commentary and listened to Coppola and watched a few documentaries. And they were talking about Roman Coppola, who ended up doing the special effects. Apparently, Francis Ford Coppola sacked the special effects team because they were trying to push him towards doing CGI. And he didn't want CGI, who wanted to do all the effects in camera. So he hired his son, Roman, who was maybe 29 at the time, who had done a lot of magic, so knew about illusions and ended up doing a stellar job, really, with a lot of the practical effects that were all done in camera. But that was the one effect, which was the blurring smoke that the carriage carrying Jonathan Harker driven by Dracula going into Dracula's castle. That's the only bit of CGI, I thought that's pretty cool. And Roman Coppola said that it possibly, yeah, maybe that's like the last film that was going to be like that. I think that if you would do that since 1992, if that happened, then it would be a bit of a gimmick. Rather than something that people wanted to do because computer generated imagery is probably much easier to do. Although I think it lacks, I think that, yeah, I enjoy that aspect of this film. I enjoy those effects. It's very theatrical, the film, and that adds to it, I think, those in camera effects. Let's see, oh yeah, the in camera effects Francis Coppola said that it imbues the film with a mythical soul. I thought, yeah, that is something, there is something grounding, there is something real. It's like when you see, you know, the difference between Godzilla in a suit and Godzilla CGI, you know, there's a difference. Let me pass it back to you, mate, because I've got loads of these little tidbits, but that's back. Yeah, I think the interesting thing was the preparation for the film as well, the casting. So he gathers all of his cast for two weeks of rehearsals. And he tends to put people in the groups that they're in in the film. He pays for this himself because Columbia don't want to stump up any money for rehearsals. And this is a quality that we'll see as we talk about Francis Coppola, Coppola, he backs himself, he backs himself financially. And it's almost like a week of kind of rehearsals, drama school games. Two weeks, I think it was. Two weeks, oh yeah, so I think it's a week in his Napa Valley kind of estate, and then they moved to a church in Los Angeles. He does things like, he does things that he invites them to a kind of almost like a dinner theatre and gets actors to read the script through them. They first time they sit down for dinner formally. Instead of placemaps, they have copies of the novel, Bram Stoker's novel, and they read the novel together. Not everyone's on board with this. But depending on what you read, Anthony Hopkins is a bit resistant to it, but then if you read Richard E. Grant's kind of quite candid account in his diaries. Anthony Hopkins seems seems on board. The one big problem is Gary Oldman. Gary Oldman, the star, has come off the back of quite a public and painful divorce to Uma Thurman, and he's drinking heavily. So Joan rehearsals, there's bits where he blacks out, not Joan rehearsals during the sort of celebrations afterwards. He's drinking heavily, he blacks out, he's weeping because he feels like he's made a fool of himself. And then at the end of rehearsals, he has an absolute stand-up blazing row with Francis Ford Coppola because he feels that all of this is confusing. It's all generalizations, what Coppola's doing. Coppola seems to be throwing everything at them. Every little drums will trek. Things that are kind of a bit extraneous to what they're doing, like they're going hot air balloon rides that he funds. And he just blows up a Coppola, and there's tensions between the two of them. And when they start shooting, these seem to sort of filter on to set. Coppola's almost like fighting two of his actors because he gets a little bit of pushback, apparently from Anthony Hopkins, who doesn't really like to rehearse anyway and is improvising a little bit and not quite giving the performance that Coppola wants him to. We're known a ride where Gary Oldman fall out completely and barely talk to each other. And then there's interesting bits of direction on top of everything that you said, Damien, about all the in-camera effects, which everyone seems to kind of enjoy. They seem to love going on to this set and seeing the world created around them. But then, you know, at one point, Coppola has Gary Oldman whisper. It has all the cast blindfold. And Gary Oldman is told to go and whisper insults and threats into them, into their ears to get them into the mood, as if they weren't already terrified of Gary Oldman, what he might say and do. The film is completed and then four months before production, James V Hart, the writer gets a midnight phone call from Francis before Coppola, who's seen an edit of the film and hates it. He's calling it garbage and he more or less orders are to come over to Los Angeles and see the complete edit of the film or the first edit of the film. It's been shown to preview audiences. They really don't like it, especially the endings. And James V Hart goes over there and he says, "What's the worst piece of film I'd ever seen? The one I wrote, I was comatosed, drunk and if." They start to kind of repair the film and Coppola manages to convince Columbia to stump up some extra money to essentially kind of, he's re-editing the film and shoot little bits, they take discarded scenes, they add scenes, and they completely re-shoot the ending because the ending sort of annoys audiences, because the audiences effectively want to see, they don't just want to see Dracula die, they want to see Winona Ryder and Gary Oldman get back together. And so what they do is they kind of re-shoot the scene and then they sort of re-edited it. So what you see at the end of the movie is a mixture of things that were filmed a year apart with an actress that hates each other at this point. And there's a lovely quote where Coppola says, "Do you think we can get Winona back to cut Gary's head off because what they wanted to do?" He says, "George Lucas's notes was that you've ignored the law that you set up." He says, "He can't just be killed, his head has to be cut off, his heart has to be taken out, and Winona Ryder has to do it. And what you have is your kind of romantic tragic closure there." And James O'Farr says, "It's the only way you will get a bath." Which I thought was quite funny. And then the anticipation for the film is actually quite dire, they called it. You said vampires in the mist. But film journalists were calling it bonfire of the vampires. In reference to the cataclysmic mess that was made of the Tom Wolf novel Bonfire, the Vanities, which was probably the most high profile flop of the early '90s. And people anticipated a similar implosion that it was going to be humiliation for everybody involved. And then the film goes on to grace something like $200 million and become the ninth highest-gracing film of the year. And I have to say, probably like the last high-water mark of Francis Ford Coppola's commercial and critical success so far, because he's got a film coming out this year, which we can talk about, where he's backed himself again, probably more than he ever has done in any other movie. So I think we've talked a lot about the background. Has anything else you want to add before we get into the sort of punching up part of the film? It cost 40 million to make. And as you said, made $250 million. It was nominated for four Academy Awards and won three of them. Aiko Ishiyoka won for the costumes. Tom McCarthy and David Stone for Best Effects. Stroke Sound Effects Editing. And Greg Cannon, Michelle Burke and Matthew Mongol for Best Makeup. Well deserved, I think. I think the costumes are incredible. Yeah. Aiko Ishiyoka's costumes are brilliant. I don't know. It's been a long time since I've seen something that is striking, that become literally characters on their own. Loved all those, loved all those, loved the first sequences in London that were filmed on an original Pathé camera, creating that early silent movie aesthetic. I think it felt like it was quite jittery in that. Yeah. Yeah. Over to you. I tell you what I do like to begin with, and then I can tell you where I think the wheels come off, the handsome carb, so to speak. I think the beginning is stunning. I think that the prologue, you know, which involves almost like every technique you were talking about, the prologue with Vlad the Impaler. And we haven't talked about the music. The music is on his day. It's amazing. And some of the best recent orchestral horror music, well, recently, it's the 30 years old, but some of the best orchestral horror movie music have kind of like the last generation, I think. It's astonishing. I think the beginning is brilliant. I think the visually stunning, you know, like the prologue, Vlad the Impaler prologue is just absolutely, the use of colors is beautiful, the kind of income or effects, the deliberate artificiality, the incredible horror movie score, which is very shallow, heavy and quiet, heavy. And then basically the whole extended section in Transylvania where Jonathan Parker goes to, you know, cut a deal with Dracula and then is in prison and sort of assaulted by the brides. And, you know, I think once it gets into London, about halfway through the movie, it becomes a love story, more than a horror story. And that's my issue with it, really. I think, I think, while it's a sort of blood and guts horror story, it's terrific. And then it becomes a very, very indulgent love story at the expense of a horror story. And that has always been my principal issue with it. I think it's too long as a movie. I watched quite a few, I think I watched the sort of what we call the three big Dracula movies prior to this. And they're all pretty tight, you know, that they come in under under one and three quarter hours. I think it's about two hours, ten minutes. You really feel the sag in the middle, but that's in the novel as well. It's very much like Nina and Lucy and Dracula's kind of off the page. But then I feel that once, you know, in the last, maybe the last half of the movie, when it becomes this sort of tortured love affair between, you know, this count, who up to that point has been a mass murderer. You know, we kind of expected to kind of park that and just accept that he's this tragic guy. He's not completely responsible for his actions, you know, redeemed by the love of Winona Ryder. It just kind of pulls the sting of all the horror, I think, and just to me kind of ruins a good Dracula story, but then sets the precedent. It wasn't the first sort of, it wasn't the first sort of vampire film to have a tortured sort of love lawn sympathetic vampire, but it almost sort of sets the bar for vampire chic to dominate vampire storytelling and have too many bironic love lawn, ultimately redeemable vampires. And I like my vampires to be evil. I don't mind to be suave. I don't mind being aristocratic, but ultimately, I want my vampires to be evil and I don't want my vampire movies spoiled by redemptive love. There we go. That's my issue with Bram Stoker's Dracula. So there we go. And there you go. It's so, you know, it was called Bram Stoker's Dracula. And none of that stuff that you're talking about is in Bram Stoker's Dracula. From the start with the prologue, which is great and looks fun, but I just got off the back of reading the book for the first time, which I want to say I hated. You know, I really do like, I mean, the last third, I didn't mind the Lucy and the meaner stuff, to be honest with you. I didn't mind it when Lucy was being slowly drained and when they were giving her blood transfusions. I didn't mind that the last third of the book just drove me absolutely crazy. I hated Van Helsing. I hated him. Like I hated the way it was written. The card broken English. The way it was written was just so hard to read. It didn't flow. It just felt all turgid and the amount of them talking about what we're going to do. And then consequently not doing it or it changing was like that. That's how much they tell you, like pages and pages of what they're going to do. And then two pages of what actually they did and how it all messed up. And I just found it just boring, but I'm seeing that it's called Bram Stoker's Dracula. I'm thinking, okay, well, maybe it's going to be a little bit more faithful to the novel. And it starts off with a prologue that just has got fuck all to do with the Bram Stoker's Dracula. It's got nothing to do with it. You're just making up this love story. And fair enough, so call it Dracula. Why are you going to call it Bram Stoker's Dracula if like the heart of the piece is something that has got nothing to do with the original book? Right? Yeah, no, I agree. I agree. It's not the first in my Dracula research. It's not the first like sort of screen adaptation to it. It's a screen adaptation to make the connection with the actual historical figure that is blabby and paler. I think the Jack Palant's version in the 70s does that. But this is the one people remember. I think one of the reasons for its success is the fact that it is a love story. Ultimately, it's a kind of, it's a fairly, I mean, it's a commendably gory or a film. It's a commendably kinky horror film as well. You know, but I think one of the reasons it has crossover appeal is because it has that kind of romance at the heart of it. It's a tragic love story. And I just like my Dracula to be evil. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the meaner and the meaner and Lucy bits serve a purpose in other adaptations because you have, you know, Lucy is effectively kind of offered up as a sacrificial lamp to show what Dracula is capable of to raise the stakes when he does it to meaner who is the central heroine. So, so it's like you see Dracula destroy one life. You see his power of seduction and essentially what he turns a woman into. And then, and then you know what the stakes are for meaner, but Dracula is always predatory. And I think he's more interesting for being predatory. I think he's more interesting for not knowing that much about where he came from. So, so in the previous sort of three Dracula meanies I watched in preparation for this Nosferatu, the Bella Lugosi Dracula on the horror of Dracula. He's never explained. He just is. And he's been around. And I think I think even in the, in the Christopher Lee one they, they call him a member of an ancient race. Peter Cushing calls him a member of an ancient race. And, and he, you know, and he's, he's, you know, and he's been doing this possibly for thousands of years. Or at least hundreds of years, and that's his purpose. His purpose is to survive and replicate and sort of preserve a kind of old world aristocracy at the same time doing it. Yeah, so I kind of much preferred the shorter, tighter, less indulgent sort of vampire films. I think the interesting thing about the Hammer one, I mean, you know, in the research it's all about these elaborate preparations for this sort of big pageant of a movie. And then you look at the, did you, I don't suppose, did you watch the horror of Dracula in the end, Christopher Lee? Yes, yes, we'd be interested to see what you think about it because I think what they've got is they've got a studio that's to bang these movies out. So they don't have time to rehearse. They spend a lot of time casting correctly. I think the scratch, which would have been written very, very quickly, is a lot more literate and a lot subtler than the James V Hart one, which if you kind of read it, you know, I think we might have been reading the same article, but there's an article where you actually see the script. And it doesn't read that well. And I think it's maybe a testament to the actors that they lift the dialogue. And whereas when you look at Peter Cushing with Michael golf Peter Cushing with Christopher Lee and the dialogue sequences off. And I would say the production design is just as fascinating with its kind of reduced budget with the Hammer movie, the colors just as beautiful, the musics just as powerful, and they've got a fraction of the budget, no time, they just got to get on with it. And I think the kind of indulgence of Bram Stoker's Dracula, even though Coppola has taken a massive creative rest, which I admire him for, because that's what he's done all of his career. And he bets on himself more than any other director. He literally puts his own money up. Sometimes it pays off like he bets the farm on Apocalypse now has a heart attack, nearly destroys his marriage in the process, produces a masterpiece. And then he uses the proceeds of that in the Godfather movies to create a studio, Zoey Trot, makes one from the heart. It's an absolute disaster. It almost sinks him financially and dooms him to 10 years of being a gunfire. I admire that about him. But I think the Hammer model, and also maybe even the Universal model with Bella de Gosi, which is a kind of problematic film in that he's actually quite boring and stilted in many respects, but has aspects about it that Admiral is kind of an interesting post to the kind of indulgence of Francis Ford Coppola and the studio system at the time, where he just bang in these movies out. And you haven't got time to faff about an overthinker. And I think certainly in the case of the horror of Dracula, it's a better movie. Christopher Lee's a better Dracula because they withhold him as well. You know, he's not front and centre. And I think Dracula movies where he's not quite front and centre are more powerful. And, you know, I think they indulge Gary Oldman. It's a big performance in a film full of big performances. And I think everyone's kind of over-indulged a bit. What do you think? It's very theatrical. I mean, the film is very theatrical. I think they lean into that. Coppola said that he never really felt that it was his movie. He always felt that it was kind of Winona Ryder's movie, a bit of a vehicle for her, and that he did it. He said he didn't really enjoy very much making it. This is in the commentary that he did in 2006. He said, you know, it wasn't the funnest time. He goes, but going back to what you talk about betting on himself, it was the film that was a massive financial success and gave him a leeway to make more movies in a way that other films hadn't done. He wanted to get the film done in time under budget. He was really, you know, really wanted to make that happen. And that did happen apart from obviously the end and the change that had to happen. But the initial filming was all done in the right time. So, you know, I kind of enjoy the, I mean, I enjoy Gary Oldman. I think his overacting at times is fun and it's, yes, what you're saying, this is not that film, though, is it? This is like, even Francis Ford Coppola said this is not scary film. This is like pretty much a love story. You're making it at the start of the 90s, you're leaning into an audience that maybe wants that kind of film, which, as you said, which is why it probably did so well. It's not a scary film, really. So, the leaning into Gary Oldman being the love interest, you know, was obviously part of success but didn't make it probably the Dracula or the scary Dracula that you know we would have liked. I didn't really like horror of Dracula, to be honest, I found it boring, but still did. Yes, it comes in at like under an hour and a half. I did enjoy Nosferatu, though, which I hadn't seen before. I really enjoyed Nosferatu, actually. I thought that was really well made and actually, even though they changed some of the names, it was a much more faithful adaptation of Bram Stoker's book, I think. I think every version takes liberties, there hasn't been, apart from, I haven't seen it apart from maybe the Louis Jordan BBC adaptation, which is quite well regarded. I don't think there's ever really been an every version takes liberties and obviously the reason they had to take liberties with Nosferatu is because they've done it without clearing the copyright. There's a whole, there's a whole sort of movie to be made about the attempts to preserve Nosferatu because, you know, they were prints being burned and they had to smuggle one to America and all of that sort of stuff but I think it's definitely true to the spirit of the book. And I think I think Nosferatu kind of stands apart because, you know, Dracula's really established as we understand him with Bella Lugosi as a swab count, you know, as yeah, where is, I think, other than literally remaking Nosferatu, you know, which you obviously had in the 70s with Werner Herzog, and you're going to have later this year with Robert Eggers. And he replicates the model because there's nothing particularly attractive about Matt Shrek he's an he's alien he's, he's everywhere he goes he's associated with pestilence isn't he because he literally brings a plane in rats following around. And he looks hideous he's quite goblin like, and so you see the influence of that sort of indirectly you know you see it most prominently in Salem's law the vampire in that is modeled after Matt Shrek. And the one we do in the shadow you know whenever you see a Buffy the vampire slayer and blade films and that you know if you want to establish the ancient lineage and an old vampire they always look like that. So the whole idea is the older you get that's what you're going to end up maybe in your middle years you're going to look like Christopher Lee, in your youth you're going to look like Gary Oldman but if you live a couple of thousand years that's where you're headed. And so, so that's that's the kind of I suppose ripple effect I mean I think I'm glad you like us for too I might I might defend the horror of Dracula in a second. But, but I think Nosferatu is one of the great or maybe certainly you know I just think I think it has such indelible images that just get caught I mean they're copied that they're self consciously copied in Bramstone because Dracula like the kind of rising to standing from the coffin, you know the use of shadows you know and and and I just I think the Nosferatu is brilliant it's weirdly enough considering it comes from the period of German expressionism which is all about creating effects distorted landscapes and shadow is that a lot of it's filmed on location and the locations are astonishing because it's made in 1922 and it's not that far from the 19th century and parts of the country that parts of Europe haven't really changed that much since the middle ages so they can film in these great old desiccated castles and on location and the whole effect is astonishing and you know I love I love Nosferatu but I did my interesting thing on the rewatch was I initially sort of lent into criticizing the size of the performances. It's quite light that in Bramstone because Dracula because my memory was always old Gary Oldman so Hammy's big he's but everyone's big in it, you know like he's you know some weights is very outsized. It's brilliant some ways and it was really nice reading in Richard E. Grant's diaries the affection that you have for Tom Waits because I remember reading that thinking I think I would have hated hanging around all these people because it's a very very actory diary and they're all being very actory. Yeah you've got all iterations and Tom Waits turns up is obvious obviously a musician first and foremost but also a very good actor and he hasn't got any of those errors he's there to do a job. He says there's lots of humility just does his job. He doesn't doesn't sort of talk about it. And and and and you know and he has the admiration of Richard E. Grant just basically not being very actory. Because, because I mean talk about big performances that you could argue that's actually Hopkins goes toe to toe with Gary Oldman in terms of me, he's over steps, he over steps Gary Oldman like in a good way or in a bad way. In a way that is just not as entertaining as what Gary Oldman did for me. Was she in great pain. Yeah she was in great pain and we cut off her head and drove a stick to her heart and burned it and then she found peace doctor. Please. First of all Anthony Hopkins, why is he the old priest back in the day. Why is he doing some of the voice over. Was it on the Demeter or just afterwards and in the beginning as well yeah yeah felt like it got in the way it felt like you know you're that there's not if you're trying to link like Van Helsing and Dracula. If you're trying in some way shape or form, then do something with it. Don't just have him with a beard. How many up with some cardopethean accent. And and and then expect it to be okay like what's the point there's no point he didn't need to be that character didn't need to be that for me, you know, and then he comes in and plays Van Helsing and has fun and like, but I just don't feel that it lands for me very well. You see, because I remember even when I saw it because I've seen I've seen this movie twice within three years at the cinema so I feel like, you know, I kind of, it's like everything I like it a bit more each time I see it. And my, my, as I said a moment ago my initial kind of from playing apart from the, you know, the kind of the way that the love story dominates. And I would say new tours are slightly cast rates. What, what could have been quite an interesting horror movie. I loved Anthony Hopkins. I loved him in it. I just, I thought he just gives the film a lift. It's interesting. It's interesting. It's like, in all the movies, Van Helsing comes in like halfway through and kind of lifts the film, if Van Helsing, you know, I think, I think, you know, you have a sort of slightly subdued Van Helsing and in, in, in the battle scene, he's all right. I think he has his moments. I absolutely love what Peter Cushing does. For me, he's the quintessential Van Helsing. I think he's subtle. He can, he can deliver vampire lore in a way that's almost as exciting as, as watching a, you know, he has a beautiful scene with a little girl, you know, where, where he's, he sort of puts a, puts a fur coat around her and he's trying to kind of, you know, he's very, very, he's very subtle actor. He's a very underrated actor generally, you know, he seems a great horror movie actor, but I just think he's a great actor and he's great at that. There's real precision in what he does, subtlety, focus. The vampire may be destroyed by being immersed in clear running water and it lives in mortal dread of the light of day, a stake through the heart, or a decapitation, returns the victims in a sense. [Screaming] The propagator of this unspeakable evil. [Music] Count Dracula. That's terra-olders, dangerous, an emperor-older. More obscene than any monstrosity you can think of. Anthony Hopkins just goes completely in the other direction, and at one point he calls himself God's madman, and there's a bit where he humps someone's leg, doesn't he? Like, you know, and just that kind of, you get the fact that he's two shades away from being as kind of sociopathic as Dracula is, and he's almost as dangerous, and I kind of love that about him. And I love the big performances. I quite like what Gary Oldman did. I just didn't really like that interpretation of the character in the way it dominated. I like Winona Ryder. I think Winona Ryder holds the film together. I think she's such an underrated actress, that period, in her stardom. But I think it was only really when she started to, she worked with, I mean, she works with Scorsese straight after this, in the Age of Innocence, and gets... As far as I'm at, I think she's had two Oscar nominations in a career, and she's, you know, and that was the thing where people kind of woke up and thought, "Oh, she's brilliant. There's a subtlety there, because the character's quite subtly malevolent in the Age of Innocence, if I remember it correctly." But I think she holds this film together, and I think she's wonderful in it. And it's a reasonably naturalistic performance, surrounded by, you know, she's like, I suppose she's like the kind of the still eye of the hurricane. And she's got all these kind of phenomenal acting, or non-acting, you know, we can talk about Keanu Reeves and things between me. But, you know, and she holds the film together, and she's the heart of the film, and I think she's brilliant in it. What do you think? Yeah, she's good. She's all right. She's all right. I mean, yeah, I don't know that I'm watching her thinking that she's amazing. A couple have said in the commentary that he said he felt that she was holding back. He said he felt that she was an actress of such incredible talent that always felt like she was holding something back. There was something more to give. He said, he said, "I'm sure at some point we'll see her." He goes, "I wouldn't be surprised if we see her do something that is phenomenal later on." You know, as she gets older, I mean, she was in Stranger Things, wasn't she? I didn't really, I saw one series of that. But she is a good actor, I think, or a good actress. I like what she does. And, again, I'm not really sort of bothered about the story of her love story, so I wasn't really invested in her character so much, which was my, you know, yeah, I just felt, I enjoy the theatricality of it. It's like going to see a really, like, a big-budget play that you come away going, "Wow, that looked great. No, the way they did that." But as far as, you know, apart from the main performance of Gary Oldman, who did I like in it? Sadie Frost. I like Sadie Frost. Come to me, Arthur. Please, these are the things you've done to me. I am so hungry for you, my darling. Just be impressed with me. My darling husband, please. And what a shame it didn't lead to bigger things. Which is exactly what Coppola said as well. She's phenomenal. She's brilliant in that. And that's a great role, I think. I think that's the best female role in it. And, yeah, Keanu Reeves. Coppola said that he was so obsessed with getting the accent right, that it got in the way of everything else. I think Keanu Reeves, do you remember he played Hamlet in Canada? A friend of mine went to see it, actually. She's a big Keanu Reeves fan. And she's a cinniest as well, but she likes Hitchcock. She likes acting, she knows. She's not just a... Anyway, yeah, Keanu Reeves has basically turned into, like, the nicest man in Hollywood. A guy who, you know, through sort of the Matrix and John Wick really doesn't matter if he's a great actor or not. In a sense, it doesn't matter if he's really emotes as well as, you know, he doesn't have the range of somebody, you know, obviously like Oldman or any of the big actors. But he is probably, like, much prefer than, I much prefer watching him than Tom Cruise, you know? Or Matt Damon as well, get good. Yeah, Matt Damon. Yeah, Matt Damon as well, the same thing. I'd much rather watch Keanu than those two. And they're all, you know, about equal as far as sort of talent goes or is about, you know, capability. Oh, no, I would say that Cruise and Damon are better actors, much, much better actors than Keanu. But I think Keanu is interesting because I think what he's done is he's kind of, he's refined what he is. There's an innate likability that has probably caused him to survive because, you know, initially, you know, obviously, because he's coming off the back of Bill and Ted, you know, he's trying to find. You know, I mean, he had a small role in Dangerous Liaisons as well. So you see, you see the ambition in it, like, I'm going to take a small role, you know, in this movie surrounded by phenomenal actors, period piece. And he sort of stumbles, but you like it. So that sort of carries him on. And then, and then there's commercial momentum builds with speed, point, break, the Matrix. And then what I think he does is I think he sort of refines kind of like the essential Keanu-ness of him. And turns it into the thing that no one else can do, because obviously he's kind of remained supremely fair. And there's just sort of refined that from the Matrix onwards. There's a kind of slightly different Keanu Reeves. There's a kind of more Zen-like Keanu Zen warrior sort of thing that he does. And I actually think he's phenomenal. I think he's a phenomenal movie star. Incredibly watchable. He's got a lot better as an actor. He's just sort of refined, refined what he does to the point where there's no one else that can quite inhabit that role, that kind of mixture of kind of something that is a couple of calls in the Prince. You know, he really sticks up in the movie I read. He says, "I like him. He's a prince among men." And I think he has that sort of regality now, you know, and mixed with incredible physicality and likability. And then even as an actor, he's got better. I think he's turned into some great little character roles. I don't actually remember him in the Sam Rainey film. Is it The Giff? Where he plays Hillary Swanks? Is it Hillary Swanks abusive husband? And then I know you don't like the film, but he's phenomenal, I think. And if you look at him here and you look at him initially, well, I did all of this come from, he's phenomenal in Theon Demon. It's the really sinister motel owner. He is a terrifying cameo as a sort of motel owner. I remember being very good in that. Yeah, and you forget how big he is as a man. So when he uses that from a level of purposes, especially in a movie where essentially the person he's menacing is like Elle Fanning, he's kind of wayflight. It's really scary. Yeah, so yeah, I think we had to cover the elephant in the room that was Keon, who he's appalling performance in that movie with a caveat that everyone likes him. And he's sort of towers above probably all his contemporaries now in terms of anyone in the movie, really, in terms of movie stardom and what movie stardom is as opposed to kind of being a great actor. He's an absolutely top tier movie star, I think. What type of vampire movies do you like? Yeah, great. I was going to ask you what your favorite vampire movie is near dark. Near dark, absolutely. You could go in and there's more obviously opposite direction as you've got grungy, smelly, dirty, murderous vampires. That's real, Bill Paxton, Bill Paxton. Jeanette Goldstein, aka Bassquares from Alien. Bassquares. Have you ever been mistaken for a man? No. Have you? He's just too bad. So you've got grungy, nasty, dirty, murdering vampires who are quite proud of the fact that killers really, really good at it. Yet, there's a sense of what they're a pack, but they're also a family. So in near dark, as they kind of get dispatched, even though they deserve to be, and the world is better off without them, you kind of feel the loss as each one goes to his fiery demise. So yeah, I like my vampires dirty, nasty. I don't mind them being swerved as long as they're evil. So I like Christopher Lee. I love Matt Schreck. And I really like, I really like, because you've got to make sure the two in Salem's lot. I think Salem's lot is the most authentically frightening vampire. So child vampire. Have you seen it recently, by the way? Have you seen it? I haven't. No, I keep meaning to. I'm on the verge of going on another kind of Toby Cooper kick. But I may find myself disappointed, but the, as I was a child, as many, many people were saying the scene of the little vampire window. Yeah, all done in sort of, it sort of film backwards, isn't it? It's like, you know. And then, and then the sort of cowballo Nosferatu vampire, but then you've got the suavety in terms of that, you know, the vampires familiar and fixer James Mason. Here's his little anecdote. I once, I once met David soul, the late David soul. He was doing a play. I was an usher at the time, me and my usher friends went over and the company manager of the play really liked us. So I invited us over to have a drink with David soul. All I wanted to do was talk to him about James Mason's and, and, and I just, I absolutely chicken that. And he offered us a drink and I said, no, a light disguise, you know, and so I just missed my opportunity to ask him about what I'm sure he would have been like over the moon to talk about working with James Mason. Yeah, of course people like that, you know, it's a non anecdote, really, because I just missed my chance to ask him. I sat at a pub with David soul that didn't ask him about his greatest work. I get silver lady. I had silver lady on seven inch single, I think at one point. Why? Yeah, I was young. This is the confession part. There's always a kind of confession part. Yeah, we run out of things to say. No, it's interesting. It's not therapy. Why, why, why do you have, because you, I've always seen you as a, when I was at drama school, you, you, you, I don't know if you realize this, you shape my musical taste, because this is another question. I, I, I went, when I, when I, when I converted to Christianity, it was a time of satanic panic and chucking your records away. And about a few years, for a few years, I just didn't listen to any like music that wasn't sort of contemporary Christian music. And then I started to kind of fleet fleet when Matt was my like gateway drug back into good music. And then when I, when I went to drama school, right, you, you introduced me to like the stone roses and the level is. And I don't know who these people were, but you, you, you, you, you sort of like give me, give me records and give me, give me cassettes and things like that. And, and, and sort of gangster up and stuff like that. And I remember I bought Cypress Hills album on fire, like debt, debt of charge and people like that, you know, and say, say, say, I'm, I'm, I'm sort of surprised, shocked, slightly appalled. But in a, in a non ironic buzz thing. I'll give, I'll give you another, I'll give you another, I'll give you another one of those. Yeah, I had the kids from fame first album, the TV series, this is all like, you know, the ages of like 10, 11, something like that. So, you know, I think I was just sort of finding my musical taste and it wasn't until I was about 1450 and that started to get into the original gangster rap schooly D and, and, and into, you know, electro and hip hop and then into sort of indie and the late, you know, late 80s and stuff. Yeah, because you were fully done. I met you. It was like, there's a tonic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The atomic dustbin's t-shirt used to do dance workouts. I, yeah, I don't know that used to do dance workouts. Maybe I know we all did dance workouts. Don't deny it. The way you say the way you said that. And I used to do dance workouts too. Like I was the only one. I just put the next stage. It was all really, it was all really bad. I've got a couple of things. Did you know that Lux interior does the, the scream did the scream for when Dracula announces God after the death of his beloved Elizabetha. He lets out a furious shriek that was actually performed by Lux interior. I have no idea. Oh, brilliant. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm a new. This is how far I've come from. Amy Grant, Christian's, you know, Pat Patra, Striper, Keith Green. They were, yeah, like, you know, Christian. I've retained my faith, but renounced my musical tastes from the, from the 1980s. But yeah, I'm, I'm a newly minted cramp spot, you know, so it's still all new to me. I don't know anything about the cramps, really. I don't know. They're a association with horrors, but actually there's a cramp song in Killbell last time. Yeah, but they are, they are, yeah, they're kind of like, yeah, they, they, they're, they're, they're association with horrors kind of kind of quite well established, you know, and that surfing dad's a good song. You know, surfing dad, which they rate for the return of the living. Yeah, that was the first one I heard, actually, first time I heard a proper cramp song. But yeah, look, I did not know that. That's, that's, that's a wonderful, like, it's pretty cool, right? I have another, another little tip bit that in the London streets, when Dracula and Mena are walking along. Yeah, there's a board advert, a man with a board with an advert for Hamlet at the Lyceum Theatre, starring Sir Henry Irving. Yes. And in, in real life, Bram Stoker worked for Henry Irving. And Henry Irving was seen, I did notice that, I noticed that Henry Irving was seen as a, a possible inspiration for Dracula. You know, there are lots of possible Byron. Yeah, and, but also that the pornographic work that Lucy is reading that Mena sort of feigns discussed that and then kind of reads a bit later, is a translation of the Arabian Nights by one of one of my historical heroes, Richard Francis Burton. Yeah, who, who again was seen as a very kind of vampiric, mesmeric borderline. I don't think he ever was but his, but the image he cultivated was this kind of, you know, very dark occultist, mesmerist, pornography explorer. So yeah, I like the little nods to, you know, to kind of Dracula's influences in that. Did you know that comic book artist and writer Mike Magnola was an illustrator on the film. He's the, yeah, the Hellboy dude, but you can totally see some cross pollination between some of the costumes and some of the sort of design in Dracula, and then some of the Hellboy comics, the Reds and the Blacks, you know, I like that. And there was a, there was a lot of, sorry. No, go on, go on, now I can say there was a lot in the preparation to the film, there was a lot of previs as well. They filmed all the written Michael Bauhaus, the cinematographer filmed all the rehearsals, but they also did a previs utilization animation. Yeah, based on their sort of particular story buzz I'm assuming a lot of Mike Magnola are worked its way into that. And then they would integrate actual film clips as well, from like Jean Cocktos Beauty and the Beast and other things. And also did you know that there was an insert shot from the bounty film with Anthony Hopkins that was made in the 80s that makes its way into the film. What's the shot? I'm wondering if that's the, I'm wondering if that's a demeter shot or something of the shit. Okay. I don't know what it is, but yeah, that was in my research that I couldn't necessarily recall what that might be. Mmm, might be. Mmm, the last Voyager. Well, when you say the last, the last Voyager the Demeter was a very good film, not very good film, but it was entertaining film, you know, and like a lot better than I thought it was and using that whole section of the book as the whole piece of the of a feature film was worked. But when I read the Dracula, it was the version from the television version that Stephen Moffat and Mark Gattis did Mark Gattis. A few years ago that my mate Sasha Dewan and friend of the podcast recently he very kindly put up. I think it's the first podcast I've podcast on his Instagram, but Stephen, Stephen Moffat said the popular image of the Dracula of Dracula suave charming handsome clean shaven in a high-coloured cape is nowhere in the book, you know, it's not there at all, actually. It comes from all the plays and movies and artworks, the book has given rise to, but specifically from the elements of all these the audiences took to their hearts. So in a sense it's like an audience. I would argue that it comes from Bella Lugosi, because I mean, Bella Lugosi's obviously the first member he talks about Bella Lugosi, but Bella Lugosi wasn't the first person to do it on stage, but he was the person that did it at the point when they were making a film and lobbied for it. So this is the most indelible count. Obviously, you know, like, so what Gary Albans doing is a bit of a mishmash of many, many Count Dracula's, but he's clearly doing the go-to voice enough tonight. What's with him? What sweet music is that? Yeah, yeah, and why I don't think, you know, and he's doing that and, you know, and I, I, I, I can't really talk about the Bella Lugosi version, you saw it, didn't you? No, I didn't say it. No, you didn't. It's a fascinating film because it's very, very stilted. It's, I think it comes in about an hour and 20 minutes or something, and it feels a lot longer, actually. It's based on the stage play rather than the novel, because I mean, that was the kind of the irony of like what becomes a template to do in Dracula, as it has more to do with the stage play. It has some phenomenal images. I'd argue it has the best Renfield I've ever seen, like Dwight Fry. Um, you know, actually the actual plays Renfield in that, you know, he's kind of immortalized in a, in an Alice Cooper song. He, he is phenomenal. Master, we are here. You can't be of what I'm saying, but we are here. We are safe. Um, and, and there's a Lugosi. I mean, it's, I mean, in many respects, it's, it's such a dated performance, but there's still something very mesmeric about it. You know, you can take bits out of context and it looks absurd, but in the context of the film. Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make. And it's a very kind of, it's a very kind of Miami performance is, you know, it's, it's been parodied so often when you actually sort of watch the film. It has a power and it shouldn't work, but it does. There's a real theatricality about it. You look at, you look at Bella Lugosi and he doesn't, I mean, Christopher Lee is, is by any matrix an attractive man, a regal man, a tall man. I would imagine Bella Lugosi now would never, you know, you know, you know, you, you, you, he's not an attractive man by modern standards, but you believe in his seductiveness. You believe in his exhausticism and, and, and, and, you know, again, he sets the template, you know, Francis for couple has said his favorite Dracula was John Carraday. You know, who sort of took over Lugosi and the, in the kind of mishmash horror movies where Universal was kind of in financial straits that were chucking every monster that they had in house of Dracula house of Frankenstein. And then he sort of turns up in some poverty rare movies, which I've never seen this one considering I love horror movies and westerns, but he does Billy the kid versus vampire. And he has, he has the mustache because that's the thing, isn't it, that they, that the exercise is that you're tracking as this white mustache. You obviously sort of the more drug bloody drinks that the less, you know, he kind of, he kind of gets more youthful, but he has, he has this sort of pie. And so the only thing I can remember is physical appearances with stash which paradigm retains. And so carraday, ironically, is the, the most faithful, you know, Dracula in terms of physical appearance to the book. But he didn't leave an impression on me I find it such a grand answer such a big answer. But when, when I, I think, maybe over the tail end of lockdown when I watched, I rewatched a lot of the Universal horror movies and watched house of Frankenstein of house of I was really looking forward to paradigm. And he kind of didn't really make much of it in pressure. You know, and it doesn't help these in movies with Boris Karloff and like, in some instances as Bella the ghost he playing a complete completely different character and there's such big personalities in those movies and after that, the fact that Karloff is an extremely good actor as well. It kind of gets pushed pushed to the margin, you know, which is, which is weird for John paradigm because you normally hire it, especially the John Ford movie to come in and be big and be grabbed, be eloquent, grand eloquent and kind of steal the movie for a few scenes and kind of doesn't is Dracula. So interesting. Yeah, maybe I'll check that that film at some point. To be honest with you, I'm out, I'm like over Dracula. Yeah, great. You're drained, literally drained, drained blood transfusion, or three blood transfusions. Hey, Monica, Monica Belucci in the sort of erotic section. I thought the erotic section, the three vampires seducing and was really well done, like, you know, it was very sexy. It was very beautifully shot, looked great, and I think that was Monica Belucci's first film. Yeah, incredible. I'd always misremembered it as being Monica Belucci and Arjira Argento, but I remember rewatching it a couple of years ago, be very disappointed that one of the vampires wasn't, I mean, I wasn't, I should be, I shouldn't be grateful for one Belucci. Yeah, so that says more about me that the film make you. Yeah, Dracula, done with it. I've had enough. I don't need to say anymore. Show me a vampire that is original. I think when we went back to talking about near dark, it was an original sort of feeling. The bloodsuckers make that, you know, they're, they're sort of living the earth, you know, yeah, they live a dirty bastard, like, you know, let's just, let's make them dirty let's not try and, you know, cross oceans of time for, you know, for you. I'm not really interested in all that shit. It's like, that's Twilight, basically, as well, you know, there's no, there's no without Bram Stoker's Dracula, right? Possibly not, there's no, although, although I do like it, there's no angel in Buffy the Vampire Slayer without Bram Stoker's Dracula, arguably, although I do like it as a character, but it weakens my argument to admit that. I'm up for iterations on vampires. The addiction, that's another good grungy. Yes, that's a good film. Yeah, I'm black and white dirty, basically kind of junkie vampires, but you still have that? I've not seen the hunger. I've never seen that. Yeah, that's David Bowie, right? Yeah, and Susan Sarandon, Katherine Diner. That was good, mate. That was, I remember seeing that a few times in my teens and finding it, you know, really well put together. I remember my dad, who was reasonably liberal in letting me watch stuff. I wasn't old enough to watch. Like, when I tried to run that, I went, "No, mate, not that one. You're not going to run that. Not a urine." So he protected me. Yeah, but I've never seen it since. I've never seen it since. I think because there was a lot of stigma for a long time attached to Tony Scott, and I just assumed it'd be rubbish. And now Tony Scott's been reclaimed, doesn't he, as an auteur? I don't know. Has he? I mean, you've said that a lot of Tony Scott fan, mate. Like, I'd say that right now, I don't think this, you'll be hard pushed to find a Tony Scott film that I really get on board with. No, no, no. Hang on. I can't, because I would have said true romance, but I know you don't like that. Yeah, no, I don't like that. Yeah. No, what revenge, having costner, man on fire. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not man on fire. Hated man on fire. Brilliant. We can do that. That might be a good one. Do that as a punching up. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. Punching sideways, mate. It's not up nor down, is it? Well, that could be our spin off series. Punching sideways. Yeah, yeah. I also thought that we should do a hugging up or like a spin off of this, you know, like where we go for our, I mean, you know, we tend to talk about films we love anyway, but do you have anything to add about vampires or Bram Stoker's Dracula? No, only only that I like the addiction. I didn't talk about the addiction enough, but time's gone. Yeah. Great film. If you haven't seen it, check it out. Christopher Walken manages to be swive in the midst of a world of dirty junkie philosophy, quoting New York vampire. So you have the best of all possible worlds there. Yeah. Some great Catholicism in it. Some great as one who loves Rome. There's an evangelical Protestant who loves Rome a bit too much. It's perhaps the perfect horror movie for me. So, yeah, no, that's it. We're done. We'll put the lid back on the coffin. He's very good. Unsecrate the earth. Move on. Very, very, very deeply. Yeah. Yes, we'll bring you up for Robert Eggers, Nosferatu, and we'll see what, you know, we'll see what we'll see. I've got high hopes. He hasn't let me down yet. No, I wasn't overly impressed with being on the Northman, which we can do as a punching up as well. I'd love to have it. I'd love to have another go at the Northman. Yeah, I'd love to go 12 rounds. On the Northman, I love that film. I watched it again recently. But thinking about it the other day, Bjork was the best bit in the film for me. Wow. She's in it for like three minutes. Yeah. And I wanted more of that. I wanted more of that sort of thing, that feeling, you know, the other worldliness. Anyway, anyway, run off topic. Would you like to tell us what we're going to do next? Yes, yes. What we're going to go with, big performers, racking movies. And we're going to look at Peter Sellers and his late flowering Renaissance in the Oscar nominated movie, Doctor Strange Love, which is fascinating for me because you are the biggest Kubrick fan I have ever met. And you don't like Doctor Strange love, because he's my least favorite Kubrick. Yeah, wrecks it with not just one, but three performances. Greedy bastard. I can't better that. That's the best way to end the podcast. I'm going to say, I'm going to say the top of the morning or good night or. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Yeah. I'll say wherever you are from Nottingham, England. Top of the morning, top of the evening, top of the day from Sydney, Australia. Until the next time. I'm literally at the end of the day. Groovy. (Music)
