Tuesday, April 26, 2005
DOWN FOR THE COUNT
We watched the original, the ur-text, the template Dracula (1931) with Bela Lugosi.
The movie, a NY Times Best 1176 Film, is a prime example of a simple truth. It does not matter how cheesy the production may be, if the story is good and the 'chemistry' is right, a movie will hold you tight until it decides to let you go.
It is hard to say what the glue is here but it worked. We enjoyed it.
We saw the end of Lugosi's life in Ed Wood. Martin Landau did the honors and Ebert talks some about the links in his review at the link above.
I can't give this more than a 2 out of Netflix5 really. It is a curiosity. There have been so many imitators that it is hard to see the impact of Lugosi himself or to work around the limitations of this early sound film. I am sure that if I saw it in the original it would scare me whether the bats look like puppets or not.
