Dracula (1958) on Netflix
In 1885, Jonathan Harker arrives at Castle Dracula as a librarian, but his diary reveals that he intends to destroy the Count. A woman in the castle begs him for help.
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Trailer
Plot summary
Librarian Jonathan Harker arrives at Count Dracula's castle near Klausenburg, and his diary reveals his real aim: to destroy the Count. A young woman there begs for his help, and he is bitten when he tries to rescue her. Doctor Van Helsing comes to Klausenburg seeking his apprentice and receives Harker's journal; at the castle he finds the miniature portrait of Harker's fiancée, Lucy Holmwood. In Karlstadt, Van Helsing tells Lucy's brother Arthur and Arthur's wife Mina that Harker has died. Lucy is ill, and Arthur refuses to let the doctor examine or treat her, though a vampire's bite already marks her neck. By night, Lucy opens her terrace doors.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Dracula (1958)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The film historian Christopher Frayling credits Dracula with introducing fangs, red contact lenses, décolletage, ready-prepared wooden stakes and, in the celebrated credits sequence, blood spattered from off-screen over the Count's coffin.
- Dracula, the first Hammer Horror film to star Christopher Lee as the Count and Peter Cushing as Van Helsing, was the first vampire movie ever to be shot in color.
SPOILER
Streamlining Bram Stoker's novel to under ninety minutes on a low budget at Bray Studios, screenwriter Jimmy Sangster made Jonathan Harker a vampire hunter who is killed, dropped Renfield and Quincey Morris, and replaced the ship voyage with a short hearse ride.- For the scene in which Mina returns home after a night with Dracula, director Terence Fisher told Melissa Stribling to imagine she had had "one whale of a sexual night, the one of your whole sexual experience".
- Dracula's power to transform into a wolf, bat or mist was dropped from the script; screenwriter Jimmy Sangster said such changes made the film seem more like a fairy tale and that he tried to ground it in reality.
- Producer Anthony Hinds said that when it came to casting Dracula it never occurred to anyone at Hammer to use anyone else but Christopher Lee, who earned £750 for the role.
- The BBFC cut the film for its original British release, giving it an X rating; the 2007 uncut re-release was rated 12A.
