Dracula (1958)

Director:

Terence Fisher

Writers:

Bram Stoker (novel) and
Jimmy Sangster (writer)

Release Date:

8 May 1958 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Thriller

Tagline:

Don't Dare See It...Alone!

Plot:

After Jonathan Harker attacks Dracula at his castle (apparently somewhere in Germany), the vampire travels to a nearby city...

Plot Keywords:

Eccentric | Tense | British | Stylized | Victorian Era

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Peter Cushing	...	Doctor Van Helsing
Christopher Lee	...	Count Dracula
Michael Gough	...	Arthur Holmwood
Melissa Stribling	...	Mina Holmwood
Carol Marsh	...	Lucy Holmwood
Olga Dickie	...	Gerda
John Van Eyssen	...	Jonathan Harker
Valerie Gaunt	...	Vampire Woman
Janina Faye	...	Tania (as Janine Faye)
Barbara Archer	...	Inga
Charles Lloyd Pack	...	Dr. Seward
George Merritt	...	Policeman
George Woodbridge	...	Landlord
George Benson	...	Frontier Official
Miles Malleson	...	Undertaker

Also Known As:

Dracula 1958 (USA)
Horror of Dracula (USA)
Drácula (Argentina) (Spain) [es]
Cauchemar de Dracula, Le (Belgium: French title) (dubbed version) [fr]
Dracula (West Germany) [de]
Dracula il vampiro (Italy) [it]
Drakoulas, o vrykolakas ton Karpathion (Greece) [el]
Horror Draculi (Poland) [pl]
Horror de Drácula, O (Portugal) [pt]
I Draculas klor (Sweden) [sv]
Pimeyden prinssi (Finland) [fi]
Vampiro da Noite, O (Brazil) [pt]

Runtime:

82 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound Recording)

Certification:

Norway:16 (1958) | UK:12A (re-rating) (2007) | USA:Approved (PCA #18981) | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | UK:15 (video rating) | UK:X (original rating) | Argentina:16 | Finland:(Banned) (1958) | West Germany:12 | Sweden:(Banned) (1958-1970)

Filming Locations:

Bray Studios, Down Place, Oakley Green, Berkshire, England, UK

Company:

Hammer Film Productions

Trivia:

According to the narration, the action of the film takes place within a two or three week period between May 3 (the opening entry in the Journal of Jonathan Harker), picks up "ten days" after his demise when Van Helsing arrives (sometime after May 15), and concludes in late May or early June 1888.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: About quarter of an hour into the film, immediately following the scene where Dracula attacks Harker and then carries the vampire woman out from the library, there is an establishing shot of the outside of Dracula's castle. It looks motionless, but on closer inspection, a dark figure can be seen rushing past the bushes around the entrance to the castle. The most probable explanation is that it is in fact the top of Dracula's carriage, and the shot was originally filmed for the scene a few minutes later when the carriage rushes past Van Helsing on his first trip to the castle. However, the carriage is so indistinguishable in long-shot, the editors obviously abandoned it and used it here instead.

Quotes:

Count Dracula: Sleep well, Mr. Harker.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Perfect Scary Movie (2005) (TV)

"Probably Hammer's best horror film."

**POSSIBLE SPOILERS**

Jonathan Harker (Van Eyssen) arrives at Castle Dracula posing as a librarian with the intention of destroying Count Dracula (Lee) who is the lord of all vampires and the most evil creature on Earth. Unfortunately, after Harker is bitten by Dracula's vampire bride he realises that he is doomed to become a member of the undead and while his senses are still his own he sets out to destroy the Count and his bride in blood. He stakes the bride but he is then overpowered by the Count and is turned into a vampire. Dr Van Helsing (Cushing) arrives at the castle and destroys Harker but of Dracula there is no sign. Meanwhile Lucy Holmwood, Harker's girlfriend has been struck by a mysterious illness. Dr Van Helsing suspects that she has become the victim of Dracula in revenge for the loss of his vampire bride and that Lucy is to replace that woman. His suspicions are confirmed when Lucy dies and she is seen leaving her tomb every night. Lucy has become a vampire and Van Helsing manages to destroy her before she attacks the niece of the Holmwood's housekeeper. With the help of Lucy's brother Arthur (Michael Gough) he sets out to trace Dracula's coffin and destroy him thus ending his evil reign of terror.

After the enormous commercial success of THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957), Hammer turned to Bram Stoker's classic horror story Dracula as their next subject for filming. They wasted no time in re teaming stars Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee along with screenwriter Jimmy Sangster, cameraman Jack Asher and director Terence Fisher. The result was another box office smash and Hammer's reputation as the finest purveyors of horror since Universal in the 1930's was fully opened. The film spawned six sequels all of them starring Lee as the Count. However, none of them with the possible exception of the first really lived up to this one because the scripts went increasingly away from Stoker's original and Lee's Dracula was sadly reduced to little more than a supporting character. They were Dracula PRINCE OF DARKNESS (1966), Dracula HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE (1968), TASTE THE BLOOD OF Dracula, SCARS OF Dracula (both 1970), Dracula AD 1972 (1972) and THE SATANIC RITES OF Dracula (1974).

Dracula (US: HORROR OF Dracula) is probably the best horror film Hammer ever made. The lighting of Jack Asher is excellent, the sets were well used and the performances of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee are outstanding. The night time scenes are especially impressive and are not so obviously day-for-night as they would be in some of the company's later films. The script by Jimmy Sangster scales down the original novel considerably due to the film's small budget, but compared to the awfully overblown version by Francis Ford Coppola in the early 1990's this film is still more effective.