Episode 77 - Halloween Horror Month (2025) Dracula (Orange Dracula, is a tasty drink) - Middle Age Movie Reviews Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to the Electronic Media Collective podcast network. Yeah,
it's a mouthful. For more great shows like the one
you're about to enjoy, visit Electronic Media Collective dot com.
And now our feature presentation.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Who welcome to.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
The Middle Aged Movies Podcast. Three guys saying listen to
them children up tonight? What music they make? My name
is Tim. My podcasting partners.

Speaker 4 (00:33):
Are Medieval Matt, Joey Oh joining us tonight.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
But i'd be only after the sun went down from
the cybernetic shark and MCU's bleeding at YouTube channels.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
It's cyber say hello.

Speaker 5 (00:45):
Cyber salutations. Looks how we're doing. Thank you for having me.
Have a good night, all.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
Right, Joey, Why don't you tell us what we're watching
at the picture show tonight?

Speaker 6 (00:59):
Tonight, we are watching the nineteen thirty one movie Dracula,
number fifty five from the Book of one thousand and
one Movies You Should Watch Before You Die, Written by
Bram Stoker, Hamilton Dean and John L. Balderson, directed by
Todd Browning and Carl Frum and starring Bela Lugosi, Helen

(01:20):
Chandler and David Manners.

Speaker 4 (01:22):
Well, thanks Joey and hey, thanks for watching those manners
while you're still rocking the mic. When was the first
time you saw this version of Dracula?

Speaker 6 (01:32):
I don't know. Again, with all the universal horror films,
I want to say that, with the exception of Frankenstein,
I can't remember when I first saw them. I probably
saw clips of them in various programming on television in
the nineteen eighties.

Speaker 4 (01:48):
Gotcha, well, Cyber as our famed friend from the East Coast,
why don't you tell us when was the first time
you saw Dracula?

Speaker 5 (01:58):
Oh, first time I saw Dracula was probably I didn't
see it till I was definitely an adult.

Speaker 7 (02:06):
I didn't see it as a kid. Unfortunately.

Speaker 5 (02:09):
I might have seen bits and pieces and other films
a little bit here and there, like a scene or
something like I knew that Belogosi was, you know, Dracula
and all that kind of stuff. She didn't watch the
actual film till probably about twenty years ago. I remember
just absolutely thinking that it was a very fun film.
Found it so different than all the other you know,

(02:29):
vampire and Dragula films, you know that had been throughout
the years since that came out ninety four years ago.
It's funny to finally watch the film that was originally
the film that basis for all these other vampire films.
So it was a really great first watch. It was
really enjoyable. It was fun seeing something else Todd Brianding

(02:49):
had directed. It was fun seeing these other characters and
seeing their interpretation of certain characters and that. So it
was a really fun time and I really enjoyed it.

Speaker 6 (03:00):
Nice.

Speaker 4 (03:00):
Nice, Well, I'm looking forward to hearing some more of
your insights into your thoughts on Dracula as we move
forward to this movie. But let's let's turn over to
our own count, our our elder statesman, as you might say, Tim,
when was the first time you saw Dracula?

Speaker 2 (03:17):
Matthew?

Speaker 3 (03:18):
The first time, sorry, Matt the first time that I've
seen probably Dracula, not directuly of the movie, but directly himself. Again,
is pretty much my introduction to all the Universal Monitors, Monsters, Abbot, Constello,
meet Frankenstein, because we have Dracula in there, but directly
the movie proper again, ticking this off for the first

(03:38):
time today, making my way through the Universal Monster catalogs.
So four down, Ah, anymore to go?

Speaker 4 (03:47):
Nice, I like how you you added the count in
there as well. You know what, I'm gonna have to
go with you like you. You know, my first introduction
to this version of Dracula was through Abbott and Costello.
But the first time I actually get to watch this
movie was, oddly enough, back in nineteen ninety two, shortly
after I went and seeing Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula.

(04:11):
I actually rented a VHS copy that's right, DHS of
the original Dracula when they came out with the box
set of like all the Universal Monster movies, I just
I borrowed from the bridge from the video store the
classic Dracula. And I had forgotten how slow this movie is.

(04:31):
For it being like only like an hour and change long,
it felt like it drug as I was watching it
this time around.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
With that being said Tim as.

Speaker 4 (04:39):
Our horror movie host, what do you have in mind
for this evening's synopsis on the Dracula?

Speaker 3 (04:48):
Well, I think the same thing, Matthew. I would like
to take a little bit different direction. You're not gonna
be any of the monsters or anything like that as
we did in Frankenstein. I think instead I would like
you to read the synapsis as Renfield as he documents
his interactions with Count Dracula in his journal.

Speaker 4 (05:07):
Ooh nice, something a little different. Let's see what I can.
Let's see what I can come up with you for you.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
Blah blah blah blah blah.

Speaker 4 (05:13):
Oh sorry, wrong one. I have been tasked to travel
to the small village of Transylvania in Romania to finalize
the transfer of the Carfax Abbey estate in London to
a Count Dracula. Upon my arrival, I encountered resistance from
the locals to bring me to Count Dracula's castle in

(05:36):
the Carpathian Mountains. They claim the Count is a vampire
and that he and his companions roam the countryside draining
the blood of their victims. I dismissed this nonsense and
proceed to meet with the Count. Oh but I should
have listened, for the rumors were true, and I now

(05:56):
find myself to be Dracula's unwilling assistance. I travel to
England with the Count and we take up residence in
Carfax Abbey. There, the Count immediately sets out to transform
the night door neighbor Mina Stewart into his next vampire.
The only thing that stands between my master and his

(06:16):
latest victim is doctor Van Housing, who has been called
in to investigate her strange blood draining.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
Inconceivable.

Speaker 4 (06:34):
Wow, I actually feel my vein popping on my forehead
there as we dive into this movie. I find it
quite interesting that we start off with Renfield, as we
all know, probably from the classic tale that Renfield is
you know, uh, Dracula is familiar, and I'm used to
seeing this from the book where we start off with
Jonathan Harker, so I think it was a little different

(06:56):
this time around to be seen Renfield in this in
this role as the solicitor traveling to count Dracula's estate
in Transylvania on a business matter. And of course, you know,
they can't they can't travel all the way to Dracula's
castle because they have to make it stops because the
stage coach. Much like another movie we watched with a
stage coach as they travel across you know, the United States,

(07:19):
this stage coach just happens to be traveling through Transylvania
and it has to stop at a local village where
people are afraid of the local inhabited vampires of the area.
They warn Renfield not to go to the castle because
they know that Count Dracula is a vampire, which, of
course he just doesn't think much of it. He dusted

(07:40):
off his shoulder. So Renfield refuses to stay at the
village and asks his carriage driver to take him to
the Borgo pass dracula stage coach and he has driven
to the castle by Dracula's coach with Dracula disguise as
the driver.

Speaker 6 (07:56):
En route.

Speaker 4 (07:57):
Renfield sticks his head out of the window and asks
the driver or to slow down, but sees the driver
has disappeared. A bet now leads the horses. So, gentlemen,
opening up, we see obviously Bela Legosi playing the stage coachman,
and we see some cool effects with the nineteen thirties
rubber bat puppetry. What did you guys think of this

(08:19):
opening sequence? And I'll go over to you first, Cyber
what did you think of the introduction of Renfield in
our movie?

Speaker 5 (08:26):
So, you know, this is a great opening. It's very cheesy,
very much fun and just enjoyable. You know, it definitely
has that great nineteen thirties vibe. And you know, definitely
with this film because it was being made right around
the time the Great Depression has started. You know, they
didn't have as much funds as you know other films

(08:47):
that were being made around the same time. They had
to go with what was the cheapest, and having rubber
bat puppetry is something that you'd have to do during
that time anyways, because they didn't have digital effects like
we do today. With how cheesy they look, they still
did the job and really did a great job. But
make it look like, you know, there's bats flying there,

(09:07):
especially when you know the driver turns into the bat
because we all know that it's Bella. That's Count dragging
himself driving the carriage.

Speaker 7 (09:15):
I think that's.

Speaker 5 (09:15):
Really, you know, really well done for its time in
nineteen thirty one. And I think the introduction to Renfield
is really great because I think the actor that plays
Renfield does a great job, like how the transition of
Renfield is throughout the film, and we get to see
at the beginning kind of the normal Renfield that you know,
we wish we had at the end of the film,
he plays the character very well and we get a

(09:36):
very normalized person who're eventually down the road will see
him alter as he gets as he goes along with
Count Dracula. But I think the coach, the look of
the land, everything about that opening sequence, the carriage ride
there is really done well. I mean, I think it
looks great for being ninety plus years old. I think
that the digital transfer that they did looks amazing for

(09:58):
being over ninety years old as well. And you know,
all the stuff that they did to kind of minimize,
you know, the cost of things for this film, I
think they paid off very well because it ended up
going on to be a really successful film. I still
think that they did a great enough job to make
it seem like it's authentically another country, and I think

(10:19):
it's a really fantastic opening that.

Speaker 7 (10:22):
You know, really starts the movie off really well and
makes it very enjoyable.

Speaker 6 (10:26):
Well, thank you for that.

Speaker 4 (10:28):
Yeah, I have to admit I do like the fact
that they managed to utilize Matt Pains and some model
model tree. One thing I did notice, and maybe it's
just because you know, we're moving from the classic silent
films to now the talkies, is how little dialogue was
going on between some of these scenes. I Mean, you
could tell a lot more from what you're seeing than

(10:49):
necessarily what they're they're conveying. Through their speech and dialogue.
What about you, Tim, what'd you think of this, this
whole opening sequence with Renfield.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
Yeah, I mean there's a few things here.

Speaker 3 (10:58):
I mean, first of all, just commenting on your whole
being a talkie film, this was a groundbreaker. I mean,
it's not the first talkie film, but it's one of
the first major ones. In fact, they filmed this as
a silent version and a talkie version, so there are
actually two versions of this film that they did, just
because not every film theater had transferred over to having

(11:18):
audio sound yet. So it's kind of interesting you brought
it up. There's not a major soundtrack like we'll get
later on the films, because the common thought back then
was people will not accept music in a film if
it doesn't have a proper placement. So it has to
be like an orchestra has to be playing, or a band,
or there has to be some reason for it to
be in there. It can't just be in the background

(11:39):
to enhance the film. So that's kind of interesting during
this transition into talking films. I did agree with Cyber
two that they did a really great job with the money,
you know, as far as the film went, because this
film is really based on a stage play and not
the book. Because the book was so grand, they knew

(12:00):
that they couldn't film this. They had a big budget
initially for it, and the Great Depression kind of comes
into whammies that so they pare it down to just
the stage play, and they did such an interesting job
that the stage played later on will take pieces from
this film and added into the stage play because people
expected it. So it's kind of a tip of the
hat to how well they did some of the parts

(12:22):
in this film. As was pointing out too, they did
a great job.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
You know, these.

Speaker 3 (12:26):
Universe films overall, I mean, they do got great job
of creating some of the scenes that we see, and
they'll use them over and over again. The castles and
things like that, the inside the labs we'll see later
on in Frankenstein, things like that. But even in this one,
as you were pointing out, you know, they've got a
lot of like last paintings, Draculus's castles actually painted on glass,
and they have real carriage looking like it's going towards it,

(12:49):
but it's really just traveling kind of along a road
with a matt painting in front of it, and they
film it very quickly, so they did a lot of
really great things with a limit amount of budget and
made it look like such a bigger film than it was.
So I really enjoyed it. And I think the character
of Renfield in here, you know, Dwight Frey U does
a great job. I mean, he really gives Bella Lugosi

(13:11):
a run for his money as far as character acting
in this and bringing the characters to life. Unfortunately for him,
it's really gonna pigeonhole him into playing characters that are
very eccentric or on the verge of insanity. You know,
this is where he's gonna, you know, unfortunately, get pigeonholed
and forced to play these style characters. He'll never be

(13:32):
able to grow as an actor during his career. He'll
always play very eccentric, psychotic characters. But he even with that,
he does a fantastic job. The Redfield character in this
starts off very normal and just totally off the hook
and sane by the end of it. His deliveries, his looks,
everything like that. He just Dwight did just such a

(13:53):
great job. I gotta give the props for sure.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
Definitely, definitely.

Speaker 4 (13:57):
I mean when I when I was watching this, there
are where I felt like I'm watching like the nineteen
thirties version of The Joker. The way he stares the
camera in a particular shot that we'll talk about later on,
you can just you could feel like the craziness coming
from those eyes. I mean, like you had mentioned before
and other reviews, you know, when we talked about actors

(14:20):
portraying things through their eyes, I think he hits it.

Speaker 3 (14:22):
To a t oh yeah, those eyes that look that
he gives, and some of these scenes are wow.

Speaker 6 (14:27):
Bell Legosi like is often like he's famously staring in
this as well, and he has this look like he
just discovered that one of his coworkers ate his lunch
from the f I mean, it's just like he's he's
supposed to be putting them in a trance and it's
just like no, he just looks like rate that, like

(14:48):
they did it again.

Speaker 4 (14:50):
You know what might help Legosy is effect the way
they light his eyes too, because it seems like anytime
that you see him staring at somebody, they always managed
to like shadow his face, but his eyes always have
that like solid light on them.

Speaker 6 (15:03):
That might be why there's a subtle irritation there because
he's literally opening his eyes and getting blinded by the
light They're they're showing right there, and that can't be comfortable.

Speaker 2 (15:14):
They're actually using two pen lights.

Speaker 3 (15:15):
The guy sitting down below him, he's got two pen
lights that they're shooting right into his eyes. Belle Lagosi,
throughout the Starre thing never blinks, not once. If you
watch the film, that dude does not blink, which adds
to the persona of the Dracula character.

Speaker 2 (15:28):
But I think we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Speaker 4 (15:30):
Yeah, yeah, we are. But Joey, what do you think
of the intro sequence with Renfield?

Speaker 5 (15:35):
Oh?

Speaker 6 (15:35):
I think that, uh, Dracula really inspired a real estate
guy who become a future president by like just kind
of like being his own like assistance. So it's like
he's like, yeah, I'm the guy, you know, I drive
the stage coach. So I'm gonna throw some names out there,
John Baron, John Miller, Carolyn Diego, David Denna, sin google it.

(16:01):
It's hilarious. So that tells me that Dracula is thrifty
and he's not up keeping this castle either. It looks
like a fucking dump.

Speaker 3 (16:09):
So I think vampires as a whole don't really care
about how their dwellings look until much later, till we
get into like True Blood, where they're living in you know,
nice posh places and things like that. Before that, vampires
they just exist, you know. They all they need is

(16:29):
blood and a place to lie they're coffin.

Speaker 6 (16:31):
Yeah, I would argue interview with a vampire, there's some
there are some pretty fancy vampires, right.

Speaker 4 (16:38):
Yeah, definitely here we've established that vampires aren't worrying about drywall,
you know, they they're they're more concerned about their next
meal and if they can get to their coffin by
sun down or sun up.

Speaker 6 (16:52):
And really, Dracula is kind of like he's kind of
being his own Renfield. I mean, Renfield doesn't like like
that other person who does pseudonyms that he wasn't really making. Like,
you know, Renfield doesn't become his publicist, but he definitely
becomes his assistant, and so that he doesn't have an assistant.
He's being his own assistant. And guess who's going to

(17:13):
become his assistant Renfield?

Speaker 4 (17:14):
Yeah, so Renfield. He enters the castle and like you
had mentioned, Joey, it is like incomplete disrepair. But Renfield
is welcomed by the charming and eccentric count, who, unbeknownst
to Renfield, is actually a vampire, and they discussed Dracula's
intention to lease Carfex Abbey in England, where he intends

(17:35):
to travel the next day. Tracula then hypnotizes Renfield into
opening a window. Renfield faints as a bat appears and
Dracula's three wives close in on him. Dracula waves them
away and then attacks Renfield himself. Now there's two things
that I wanted to point out right here, is so
we do get a brief understanding that he has wives,

(17:59):
and we also get the whole point where some lines
get reoccur throughout several different versions of Dracula. The Wolves
of the Night as Tim was nice enough to point out,
or the Children of the Night, as Tim was nice
to have to point out at the beginning of the episode.
But also the fact that he tells Renfield that he

(18:21):
doesn't drink wine again two lines used later on in
several different versions of Dracula. And then, you know, like
I said, we get the establishment that he has brides,
but I think it's not really fleshed out very much
in this In this whole sequence. I mean, we just
see three women walking in and we're like, who the
heck are these ladies? What did you guys think of

(18:42):
the whole interaction between Dracula and Renfield?

Speaker 3 (18:45):
The interaction between Renfield Dracula's pretty much what do you
expect to be at the beginning. I mean, it just
looks like a transaction. Draculas seems kind of eccentric, but
who cares. He's buying a property from this real estate agent.
He's going to make his commission doesn't matter with this
guy as a cookar not. As long as the cash
is good, you know, the transaction is able to be closed.

Speaker 2 (19:07):
He's happy.

Speaker 3 (19:08):
But I think, to answer a couple of questions, I
don't think he faints because of the bat. I think
partially he is because Dracula drugs the line, you know.
I think that's what causes him to eventually pass out,
because he starts to waiver when he heads over towards
that door before he ever opens and sees the bat
come through. So I'm pretty sure that that's what happens there.

(19:31):
And as far as the line, he got Cosmid, he
got Cosby, Yeah, yeah, he got Cosby and it's actually
interesting to bring up that particular line that you know,
I don't drink wine. That's one of the lines that
actually is in this movie that will get transferred into
the plays later because it became such a popular line,
people expected it, so that was one of the things

(19:53):
that eventually all the plays will change and add in.
And then as far as the women go, there never
said to be his wives. They are known as the sisters.
So even though Dracula only seems to go after women,
which is partially because these studios don't want anything to

(20:16):
look possibly homophobic. And we'll touch on this a little later,
I have something more to say in that. So Dracula
only goes after women, and they never are designated as
his wives. They're just designated as the sisters, and they're
basically his companions. And you see he has total control
of them because when they come in and they're like, oh,

(20:36):
we're gonna get the feast on this guy's and he
kind of waves them away and his you know, over
exaggerated Bella Lagosi Dracula a way, you know.

Speaker 2 (20:45):
Just go away.

Speaker 3 (20:46):
He never says that, just you know, everything that Bela
Lagosi does in this is very much again going back
to a stage play, very overly dramatic in the way
that he carries himself, positions his hands and motions and
does things. It's very much so that I think if
he was on stage, people in the audience could see

(21:08):
and interpret what he's doing, and he kind of carries
that over into this film. So again, where as we
talked about before, based on a stage play with actors
who have done stage plays, not really acting as movie
stars yet, but as play actors in a movie. But
it's still a great scene and it definitely sets up

(21:28):
for what's going to happen to Renfield and Dracula moving forward.

Speaker 4 (21:33):
Gotcha, you know you mentioned the wine, and I had
to say, there is a little there's another vampire movie
that this kind of reminds me of, and I think
they might have taken it is from The Lost Boys.
You know, when Michael gets turned into the vampire, he
drink he has to drink the blood of the King vampire,
and I'm thinking that maybe that they got that lore

(21:55):
from this sequence here, or at least parts of it.
What about you, Cyber, what do you think of the
whole interaction between Dracula and Renfield.

Speaker 5 (22:04):
I mean, This is a classic sequence that has been
played out in several films over the years. I mean,
this is even they have said that this was pulled
directly from the Nose Faractus sequence, you know, from F. W. M.
Murray's you know film from nineteen twenty two. They you know,
suggest that this whole Renfield exchange between him and Drecla

(22:26):
is exactly the same from the Bram Stroker's you know,
actual novel. I think that it's you know, it always
plays out very well, it's very fun, it's very interesting.
I mean, the fact that he gets drugged is whole,
you know, is absolutely what you expect from Dracula. You know,
this guy's very shady, he's very you know, you don't
know what he's actually gonna do, and he's you know,

(22:48):
very you know, commanding and all this kind of stuff,
and everything has to go his way. So it's like,
why wouldn't that happen to Renfield, you know, why wouldn't
he expect that, you know, he's just this you know
dude to sell a piece of property, you know, coming
to help out DRACOLEB. And yet he gets stuck in
this whole situation and we get to kind of see
that kind of beginning of him, you know, starting his

(23:09):
descent into becoming the Renfield we all know later on
the film. Like everyone's mentioned, Dwight Fry was amazing as Renfield.
Like I said earlier, his transition from beginning to end
of the film is just amazing.

Speaker 7 (23:23):
And he really did.

Speaker 5 (23:25):
Get kind of pigeonholed into that type of character over
his acting career. And unfortunately his acting career wasn't very long.
I mean, he he died at forty five. He was
very young when he died, and it's too bad because
I would have loved to have seen him do more,
you know, as tom time went on and maybe had
a little few different roles as he got older and
stuff like that.

Speaker 7 (23:45):
You know, So it's too bad he died so young.

Speaker 5 (23:49):
But I think that, you know, this sequence too, is
fun because we really get kind of our first interpretation
of kind of draculine kind of what he is and
kind of like that great bel Agosi Drakla moments.

Speaker 7 (24:02):
You know, he's like, ah, have a drink, Why don't
you drink?

Speaker 4 (24:06):
Ah?

Speaker 7 (24:06):
You know, it's one of those.

Speaker 5 (24:07):
Types of things, and so you know, unfortunately, you know,
it's you know bel Agosi is definitely he has a
certain presence about him. And of course you know, over
the years, you know that has been interpreted, you know,
I mean count you know count from of course, Sesame Street,
you know, version and so forth, so like that have
all kind of been exaggerated. We've seen all kinds of

(24:28):
different versions of the years, but Bella's has always been
the first and the kind of the cataclysmic event that
is what everything is pulled from. And the Bride's interesting enough,
a lot of their scenes were actually cut because the
censorship in other countries when they released the film. So
instead of just like censoring it in different countries, they

(24:49):
ended up most of the time just editing out of
the completed version of the film. Even over here in
the United States because of the whole era of the
coding coming into play. There's really that very much ambiguousness
about the Brides too, is because they don't they don't
explain anything. It's because a lot of that sequences had
to be censored at the time because of how risque

(25:12):
they were considered. Because originally there was an epilogue at
the beginning of this film that was voiced by a
particular person that was in the film, and that had
to be cut because they thought it was gonna offend
religious people. There was a lot, unfortunately, that they had
to remove from this film that could have made things
more understandable.

Speaker 4 (25:33):
But I think it's a.

Speaker 5 (25:33):
Really strong start with you know, Renfield and Belagosi and
their whole relationship and kind of that demise of you know,
kind of you know, pulling Renfield into his kind of
his layer. Really fun, fantastic little sequence.

Speaker 2 (25:48):
Gotcha nice.

Speaker 4 (25:50):
Well how about you, Joey, what are your thoughts on
Reenfield and uh, Dracula.

Speaker 6 (25:55):
I love Claude Rains. He's he's got the crazy eyes
and I think he's the real star of this film.
I'm really interested in seeing the other actors the Spanish
speaking Dracula films Renfield to see to compare. I hear

(26:18):
really good things about their actor playing Dracula. And by
the way, if you guys don't know what I'm talking about,
is during the day they shot Dracula, during the nights,
they used the same set and they shot Dracula in Spanish.
And so, beginning in the nineteen nineties, because it was
long forgotten about and not talked about, they found prints

(26:40):
of the Spanish version of Dracula. Different casts, same sets,
some probably some of the same costumes, if the actors,
you know, if it fit them. And they released this
on home video, and while it flopped when it was
released in Cuba, and they started saying, hey, you know,
we're just gonna We're just gonna do you know, foreign

(27:01):
language dubs. We're not going to do completely different casts
shooting in another language. Flops in Cuba when it was released,
it made money in the nineties on vhs. It made money,
you know, it helped sell DVDs in the two thousands
because you get two versions of the film, and some
people's like, hey, and you know, I've never seen that
one that one's supposed to have, you know, a little

(27:22):
bit be a little bit more risk and by today's standards,
not at all, and you know, and be a little
little scarier. And I've never taken the time to watch it.
And one of the biggest things I want to see
is somebody else's interpretation of Renfield on those same sets.

Speaker 4 (27:40):
You said Claude Rains was that? Was that a mistake
just because you used the wrong name.

Speaker 6 (27:46):
Dwight Fry is Renfield? Yea, Oh fuck? I thought it was.
I don't know why I thought it was Claude Rains.

Speaker 4 (27:54):
He's not listening in the cast, so it kind of
threw me off.

Speaker 6 (27:57):
I've been thinking that for years.

Speaker 4 (28:00):
Ah well, speaking of Renfield and mistakes. So Renfield is
now in the thrall of Dracula, and so they board
the schooner the Vesta, and Renfield has become a raving
lunatic slave to Dracula, who hides in a coffin and
feeds upon the ship's crew. When the ship reaches England,

(28:21):
Renfield is discovered to be the only living person. He
is sent to doctor Seawards Sanitarium, adjoining Carfax Abbey. Elsewhere,
at a London theater, Dracula meets Seaward. Seaward introduces his
daughter Mina, her fiance John Harker, and family friend Lucy.
Lucy is fascinated by Dracula. That night, Dracula enters her
room and feasts upon the blood while she sleeps. She

(28:44):
dies the next day after a string of blood transfusions.

Speaker 6 (28:48):
So what I find interesting.

Speaker 4 (28:50):
Is that they at least capture the essence of Dracula's
transition from Transylvania into England. They kept a lot of
the characters the same, but they definitely abbreviated their relationships
and they abbreviated their introductions into this movie. What did
you guys think of the travel from Transylvania to England?

Speaker 6 (29:14):
I love the little miniature boat. They would have been
a hell of a trip without the vampire. Yeah, and
I can't remember that what's does ever remember the name
of the ship?

Speaker 4 (29:29):
Yes, they call it the Vesta, but in the book
and other interpretations it's the Demeter.

Speaker 6 (29:35):
Okay. And so they did a whole movie just about
the trip, the Last Voyage of the Demeter. I haven't
got a chance to watch that yet. Yeah, I think
I think it's very interesting. Dracula on a ship. I
don't think. I can't think of anything else quite like it.
Until Jason takes Manhattan, which he's really not in Manhattan
until the the the end of the film, it's really

(29:57):
Jason on a boat or Jason on a ship. So
we get to see a little bit of this. But
I do look forward to seeing flight of the Flight
of the Demeter, Voyage of the Demeter. Yeah, it's like, hey,
let's wake him up, popanese to eat. Of course, we've
seen this before we did. We did get to see

(30:20):
a really cool creepy sequence in no Shatu, the illegal
German interpretation of Dracula, without having to pay bram stok
or a dime.

Speaker 4 (30:31):
Right, Well, how about you, Tim, what do you think
of the the journey from Transylvania to England.

Speaker 3 (30:37):
I think it's interesting because if you think about it,
he's going on a ship with mass on it, and
at this point we would have steam power, so I'm
not sure why he's on an old fashioned, you know, frigate.
That in itself is kind of interesting, but I think
most of us wouldn't think about that because it's such
an old film where this take it for granted, but
the steam power was there. We were talking this is

(30:58):
the air of the Titanic things like. It's a little
weird that they go that way. I think the main
reason in the movie that they do it is because
they needed to use stock footage, so they basically borrow
this scene from a Universal silent film called The storm Breaker,
And if you notice, it seems off because it moves
so much quicker, and that's because the film stock that

(31:20):
they used was at a quicker frame rate than the
film stock that they used for Dracula. So it seems
a little weird, a little off even visually, if not,
you know, thinking about the timing of you know, of
friget versus steamship. But I do like the fact that
Dracula basically drains the entire crew before he gets to
his destination and Renfield is only one. And that's the

(31:41):
point where we really see the crazed Renfield when they
open up those doors and they look down like he's
the only survivor. And that wasn't even in the script
that they think. They just decided to do that on
a you know, basically on a whim on the set
and they filmed it, you know, open up doors and
he's just got that crazy smile, that was crazy stare
in his eyes.

Speaker 2 (32:02):
Oh man, it just it.

Speaker 3 (32:03):
It cements that character, It cements Dwight's ability to bring
that character to life, and you understand, this person has
gone completely insane. So he just sells it one hundred percent. Again,
I think that is the moment he steals this film
away from Bela Lugosi for the most part.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
Yeah, I just love his performance. And then they make
it to the abbey.

Speaker 3 (32:28):
You know, you got directly kind of forces an introduction
to himself at the at the I guess the opera
or play or something like that. It's awkward, it's weird.
He's like, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna update fix
the abbey. I like it just the way it is already.
That just seems odds, you know, things like that, But
he's establishing himself. It's also weird that he's buying an

(32:48):
abbey that's next door to a sanitarium. You know, I
think that's a little strange, but of course that's probably
another abbey that the doctor bought and turned into it. Yeah,
and not only that, but these people just seem to
be able to wander Willie nalely, you know. It's I mean,
they've got staff there, but it's not like they have
these people in lockdown. So I'm thinking it's not, you know,
a sanitarium for the criminally insane, but those who are

(33:11):
just you know, a little off center and not quite normal.
I don't know if Redfield belongs there. He seems way
off normal at this point. But we're gonna go with
it because you know, we have to have some kind
of plot to work with here, and it's obvious dractually
has moved in and his first target is I think
I'm gonna go ahead and just wipe out the sanitarium

(33:32):
before I, you know, make my way into London proper.

Speaker 2 (33:35):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (33:35):
The other thing I thought was interesting too, is that
he just brings three boxes of dirt with him because
he has to have the dirt of the cut, you know,
of the land that he was born in, otherwise he'll perish.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
I guess. It's such a strange thing.

Speaker 3 (33:49):
And I think in the book he takes like fifty
of them things, and this one he's got like three.

Speaker 2 (33:52):
So yeah, you hope none.

Speaker 3 (33:54):
Of those break brick apart and get mixed in because
he's screwed otherwise.

Speaker 2 (33:59):
Yeah, it's it's it's an interesting part. It's fun. There's
some very neat parts in there.

Speaker 3 (34:04):
It's, like I said, in the Renfield Park just steals
this section completely.

Speaker 6 (34:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (34:08):
Yeah, I agree with you the whole Renfield part, because
I mean that scene just kind of clinches the fact
that I think he would make a great joker in
a nineteen thirties Batman movie.

Speaker 6 (34:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (34:18):
But Cyber, what about you?

Speaker 5 (34:20):
This sequence is you know, just like everyone kind of
has mentioned it's really great. You know, we get to
finally we get to see more of how evil Dracula is,
and you know, basically eating the entire ship's crew e
s up for Renfield really kind of catapults kind of
the thought process of how you know, you know, dangerous

(34:41):
Dracula is. But also at the same time, it makes
Renfield become even more crazy and becoming his you know,
servant and everything like that, and really catapults him to
to that kind of stardom area of his you know,
his of working with Dracula. And you know this you
know sequence just continues with him killing that girl, sucking

(35:04):
all her blood out and showing her dying the next
day because he can't give her enough blood transfusions. You're
just like, it really just epitomizes how evil Dracula is.

Speaker 7 (35:14):
And I think it's really fantastic.

Speaker 5 (35:15):
Now if if they had made this, you know a
few years later, maybe they could have even gone more
gore factor with the sequence on the boat, which is
what the last Voyage a Demeter does. And you know,
as Joey has mentioned that he has not watched it yet,
I watched it a few months back, and it really
takes it to a whole new level of that whole

(35:39):
situation on the boat of you know, Count Drakla traveling
from his native land to you know, wherever he was going.

Speaker 7 (35:46):
I can't, I don't.

Speaker 5 (35:47):
I think it was actually America, not England and that one,
but he was traveling somewhere. And the fact that they
went so full like horror in that version was just
put a phenomenal And I wish we had got a
little bit of that in this original, you know film,
but because at the time they really couldn't do that,

(36:08):
and it being black and white, you know, it was
a little harder to show blood too, So it's too
bad that they didn't give you a little bit of that.
But still it's still a really fantastic sequence that, like
I said, really shows how evil Drakola is and how
dangerous he is and that you don't want him coming
to England because he's gonna suck all the blood out
of every person in England.

Speaker 7 (36:29):
I think that they did a really good job.

Speaker 5 (36:31):
Still the sequence, you know, like everyone's mentioned the taking
the stock voters, like Tim said, from the other film,
and putting it in there to show the ship moving
and everything. I thought was a really interesting FACTOI too.
I thought that was they did a really good job
with that. You know, whatever they had to do to
get to speed it up or speed it down, whatever
they needed to do to get it to fit an

(36:52):
insert into the film very well. They did a really
great job for nineteen thirty one.

Speaker 7 (36:56):
I thought it's.

Speaker 5 (36:56):
Funny with all the directing problem was that this film
had with the cinematographer having to step into to direct
because Todd Browning was having a massive meltdown while he
was filming this because unfortunately he didn't do well with
Lawn Cheney dying and he I guess, and him and
him were very close and we were great friends, and

(37:18):
Todd Browning took it really hard, and so he was
having severe alcoholicism while he was filming this and all
this kind of stuff, and it was just leaving some
days not coming back, and that left the cinematographer having
to film sequences as the director, but he never got
the recognition for being the director.

Speaker 7 (37:35):
It was all Todd Browning.

Speaker 5 (37:36):
So I think, with even with that difficulties, this sequence
here is a prime example of how great that cinematographer
was as a director because it turned out really well,
and I was really impressed with that and thought that
it worked out very well. So I think it was
a really fun sequence, and I think, you know, several
other sequences of the same nature of other Drakula films

(37:59):
have been just as fun too as this one, just
a little more garrif actor.

Speaker 6 (38:03):
Yeah, you know, it is.

Speaker 4 (38:05):
It is interesting that you see this movie and it's
definitely got the nineteen thirties sensor to it, because you
don't see a Dracula bite anybody. I mean, you get
leads up to it. You get the overacting, as Tim
had mentioned, with you know, the play acting of you know,
swinging your arms around a whole lot, and the fact

(38:27):
that whenever Belle Legosi is creeping up on somebody, he's
got his hands in a certain position, you know when
I'm watching. When I was watching this with my wife
and kids, you know, my wife kept making points of
is that supposed to be him like trying to be
scary because he's got his hands in a certain position
just out in front of him. I'm like, yeah, I
think that's just the whole you know, Let's try to

(38:48):
be as creepy and as scary as possible by doing
some kind of hand gesture.

Speaker 3 (38:53):
Yeah, he got really into doing it. He was basically
a method actor. The whole time he was on age.
He would want around like I'm ejaculating worth the cape
and things like that. People just thought he was being
kind of an idiot.

Speaker 2 (39:06):
You know.

Speaker 3 (39:07):
I think he was trying to keep his headspace in there.
So I think the hand movements and things like that
was something he just decided was associated with.

Speaker 4 (39:14):
The character, right, And it's kind of iconic because I mean,
I don't know how many times you've seen it on like,
you know, different award shows and stuff that they do
clips and flashbacks to the old black and white and
you see his hands out kind of stretched and you know,
as Cyber was nice enough to show us on the
screen putting his arm up over his face with his cape.

Speaker 2 (39:35):
Well, I think part of the problem too, is that
he was the only one.

Speaker 3 (39:41):
He was the only one that was really into making
this film. Everybody else kind of kind of made fun
of it. They were not into this. They thought it
was stupid. In fact, even David Manners claimed that, you know,
neither him.

Speaker 2 (39:53):
Were his co star.

Speaker 3 (39:53):
You know, Hellen, we're we're into this, and they were
take took it very seriously. In fact, they had to
side laughter during shooting a lot. So Bella Lagosi was
really the only person that took filming this horror film seriously.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
Everybody else it was kind of the Star Wars thing.
I mean, if you know, I'm gonna go back, I'm
gonna do this.

Speaker 3 (40:13):
But you know, like in that final scene of Star
Wars where they're giving out the medals as they're walking down,
people are like whanker, you know, just making fun of
this because they thought it was a ridiculous film and
it turned into this, this big epic and this Dracula film.
I mean, this is the kickstarter for the universal monster
horror films. This is what really kickstarts horror films as

(40:33):
a major genre, you know, and we're gonna give us
all the rest of these great horror films later on.
So they did for this did for horror what Star
Wars did for sci fi. And unfortunately most of the
actors didn't take it seriously. But Bella did, and he
really tried to bring a performance of Dracula that you remember,
and he did it even though we look at it

(40:54):
go wow, that's almost just freaking ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (40:57):
The way he's portraying this or the way.

Speaker 3 (40:58):
He's acting, but I think against that stagecraft, that's what
he was doing.

Speaker 6 (41:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (41:03):
Yeah, going off of what Tim said about Bella being
really into it, he actually took a pay cut to
be in this film because originally they wanted Lawn Cheney
to play Dracula, and because he was he wasn't able
to do it. That's why Bella ghostly got it. But
he agreed to do it because he loved doing the
stage play, and so he actually ended up doing it

(41:25):
for five hundred dollars a week, and at that time
that was considered, you know, pretty low for you know,
a studio film an actor, because actually the gentleman that
played David Manners, who played one of the characters in
the film, he actually made more than Bella did weekly

(41:47):
while making that film. Once again, that show's kind of
like what Tim was just saying, how much he loved
playing Dracula.

Speaker 4 (41:54):
Yeah, and it was definitely a craft back then. Speaking
of crafts, let's take a look at our cracked crafty
doctor over with Renfield. So Renfield is obsessed with eating
flies and spiders, and that's when we're introduced to the
pallymath doctor professor van Helsing. As he analyzes Renfield's blood

(42:15):
and discovers his obsession, he starts talking about vampires, and
that afternoon, Renfield begs Seaward to send him away, claiming
that his nightly cries may disturb Mina's dreams. When Dracula
calls Renfield through the medium of a wolf howling, Renfield
is disturbed by Van Helsing's showing him wolf Spain, which
Van Helsing says is used for protection from vampires. Now

(42:37):
I have to say that Van Helsing is actually in there,
and he's trying to connect science with mythology with folk tales,
peel back the veil of everything and try to understand stuff.
And he's the first one to really realize that, okay,
vampires are probably real, and he kind of uses a
little bit of like a pseudoscience to explain it all.

(42:58):
And I think it's kind of neat that we get
the first look at a Van Helsing on film that
is played by this actor that kind of like I
would almost say, fits Van Helsing to Tea.

Speaker 6 (43:10):
I mean, he actually looks older.

Speaker 4 (43:12):
He looks like, Now, mind you, this is the thirties,
so he's probably like only forty five, but he looks
like he's a well aged, learned man, and I like
this portrayal of Van Helsing. How about you, Joy, what
did you think of the introduction of our doctor Professor
Van Helsing.

Speaker 6 (43:30):
I love his widow's peak and I love his thick
coke bottle glasses. The accent is very interesting and he
might be my favorite portrayal of Van Helsing. Nice.

Speaker 4 (43:42):
How about you, Cyber, what did you think of our
introduction to Van Helsing?

Speaker 5 (43:45):
Here? It's really interesting because out of all the introductions
to Van Helsing and films, this was like the kind
of like the first iteration of it, and so I
think it played a very big significance on the future
films that would have then Helsing in it. And I
think that his introduction, out of all the introductions I've

(44:07):
seen throughout cinema, was was I think the best, simply
for the fact that it showed him as like this
doctor who happens to be a part of this noble
bloodline that you know, kills vampires, and you know, I
think that that introduction to him was is a really
fun way of introducing him. Instead of him just being

(44:28):
off and killing vampires, he actually is in incahoots inside
where things are going on, where crazy things are going on,
and starting off. So I think that was a really
great introduction to the character, simply for that fact that
you know he's in there with the loonies trying to
figure out to see if maybe there's connection to them
in vampires or some other creature that he might have

(44:51):
to destroy. And I think that was a really great
way of introducing him to So the fact that you
get to be introduced to him in more of a
unformal fashion, whereas he's already kind of shown that he
is the great slayer that he is, this has like
showed him kind of like more than a human light
and kind of giving you kind of that beginning of oh,

(45:13):
this is Van Helsing. He has this history and we
could see him going to work, you know, at this
and showing his other abilities other than being a vampire slayer.

Speaker 7 (45:25):
So I think it's a really great introduction to him.

Speaker 4 (45:27):
Nice and I like the fact that you used the
term vampire slayer without putting Buffy in front of it. Well,
how about you, Sam, how do you how do you
feel about this interpretation of Van Helsing?

Speaker 3 (45:39):
I almost have to agree with Joey on this one.
I think it might be my favorite Van Helsing of
well timed. And I think I've never heard anybody describe
him as a polymath, but man, that is a perfect
description of him. I mean, this is a man who
has taking disparate fields of knowledge of this like suit

(46:00):
to science and you know, lower uncommon lore throughout the
world along with regular science and you know, other mathematics
and things like that, and is willing to pulmulate this
into something that people can use when they can explain
nothing else, you know, and they have no other explanation
as to why things are happening, and people want to

(46:22):
write him off.

Speaker 2 (46:23):
It's probably a kook, but yet they call him in.

Speaker 3 (46:25):
We're like, okay, there's no normal explanation for this, let's
bring in Van Helsing, because this guy seems to have
a bead on things that are out of the ordinary.

Speaker 2 (46:35):
And that's what this guy brings to the table in
this one.

Speaker 3 (46:37):
You know, he's kind of like, I have studied things
that normal people wouldn't and I have knowledge of things
that normal people would not have, And I'm telling you
that I know what's going on here, even though you
wouldn't and even though you may not accept it, I
know it needs to be done.

Speaker 2 (46:56):
He just he presents very well.

Speaker 3 (46:58):
In this and I think that is one of the
you know, strong points character wise in this film. Is
this outside of the character acting of Belle Legosi as
Dracula or you know again as.

Speaker 2 (47:10):
Dwight as Renfield. So I think he really does that
character justice.

Speaker 3 (47:16):
Although I feel starting in this you know, this scene area,
this is where the movie starts to fall apart a
little bit before me because I think the storyline starts
to get a little convoluted. And I don't think it's
necessarily because of the script, but I think it's simply
because this film got heavily edited. Even at the end

(47:41):
when it was all done and it was presented to
the president of Universal Pictures, you know, Carlo Me, he
was like, oh, this gives me the he gbs, and
he ordered a re edit of the film, which really
I think screwed up some of the the plot points
in the movie as a whole. And you couple that with,

(48:02):
as Cyber pointed out, where you have you know, Todd
Browning basically drowning himself an alcohol at the loss of
his friend Lon Cheney. Who has You know, a lot
of times when he would direct, he would just look
the script and pull things out, Goh, this has redundant,
this is redne just film this, and then he would
just leave and leave the rest of it, basically to

(48:24):
a cinematographer, Carl, you know, to I think it's Kerry
Freud or Brune. I don't know how to say his name,
but it just I think there was a lot of
problems going.

Speaker 2 (48:38):
Forward from this point on.

Speaker 3 (48:39):
That leads to a little bit of kind of this
movie being a little bit of convoluted. But I think
the thing that pulls it together again is some of
the excellent acting between Belagosi, between Dwight Fry and you know,
solid characters that were written, such as the Van Nelson character.

Speaker 4 (48:57):
You know, I do have to agree with you to
a point, but I think part of the reason why
it starts to fall apart is because we're now taking
out of more of a scope and we're kind of
confining it to a single set. I mean, the majority
of the rest of this movie is set around the
sanitarium and Mina Harker or Mina Steward and their home.

(49:20):
Next time we see Dracula is in her bedroom or downstairs,
in the in the parlor, or right outside the house.
You know, they're they're they're very much confined to these areas,
much like the stage play, you know. And I think
that's what kind of pulls it out of the whole.
I'm watching a movie and I'm I'm.

Speaker 6 (49:39):
Not watching a movie.

Speaker 4 (49:40):
I'm watching like a stage play on on on the
silver screen.

Speaker 2 (49:43):
I think there's a few things missing though, because again,
when her friend is killed, I don't remember if we
see her wandering around.

Speaker 4 (49:52):
I think there's discussion of it. There's one shot Lucy
wandering in the in the I don't know, the streets
of London.

Speaker 1 (50:02):
That's it.

Speaker 4 (50:03):
Yeah, so you might have something there where they just
cut out a lot of Lucy's Yeah, I.

Speaker 3 (50:07):
Think there's important pivotal moments like that that hit the
cutting room floor that had they been there, even if
it was just fleshed out for an extra fifteen seconds yet,
I mean, could have made all the difference on some
of this build up as to what's going on to
establish like, look, she's a vampire. We see her, she

(50:28):
has risen from the grave. Van Helsing goes to take
care of because we understand that Van Helsing dispatches of her,
but we don't see Van Helsing dispatch her, right. You know,
there's things I don't even know is it even discussed,
because I might have missed it. Maybe I not off
for a second, didn't realize there was something, But I
don't remember that even being discussed necessarily.

Speaker 4 (50:50):
Well, there's like an offhand comment made in the next
couple sequences that we'll get into. You know, Mina starts
getting attacked by Dracula.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
He visits her.

Speaker 4 (51:01):
At night, you know, he's he's coming in on smoke
and stuff. At that point, he kind of almost gets
her into his thrall. And while Van Helsing is trying
to understand what's going on with Mina, he asked her
a few questions, and one of the things that he
asks her is about Lucy. You know, oh, where'd you
see Lucy? You know, it was like, oh, well one
night I saw her walking in the evening and then

(51:21):
they talk about children going missing. So then that's where
you're kind of supposed to put two and two together
to come up with four. That Van Helsing went and
killed Lucy to solve the problem. That's kind of like
glossed over it definitely, definitely they cut something out there.
Now he's focusing on Mina, and Mina is now you know,
having these nightmares, and we see these sequences where Dracula

(51:45):
comes in and visits her. Dracula shows up while everyone's
in the drawing room or the parlor or whatever you
want to call it in you know, nineteen forties England
or anty thirties England, and that's when we run into
the whole lore with the mirror. Dracula shows up, someone
goes to grab a cigar, and inside the human ore

(52:05):
is of course a mirror, and that's when Van Helsing sees, oh, hey,
Dracula doesn't cast a reflection, and he kind of confronts
Dracula on that. And I think that's kind of neat
that you get this whole standoff between the good guys
and the bad guy.

Speaker 7 (52:21):
Very interesting.

Speaker 5 (52:21):
So the fact that now that we have Drakla changing
his direction on who he's you know, going after, he
like goes from one one person to another that he
tries to kind of like make his slave, if you
want to call it, and you know, basically we get
to see kind of, you know, him in his next conquest.

(52:43):
And while he's trying to do his conquest, we end
up having this situation where he gets revealed that he's
a vampire to Van Helsing because he's reflection isn't in
the mirror, and so, you know, the whole sequence is
where it shows him like going in and inviting her
and then he keeps entering her place for a couple

(53:04):
of nights and showing you know, how his hypnotism works
and all this kind of stuff. We kind of get
an idea of a little bit more about you know,
dractless powers, and so, you know, as we finally deduce
that he's you know, a vampire and that Van Helsing
knows this, and because he doesn't see his reflection in
the mirror, and redefining that you know, was again clarifying

(53:26):
that the mirror reflection a vampire doesn't show that, you know,
basically certifies that he's a vampire and kind of gives
the good guys the go ahead that, hey, this is
a vampire, we need to take care of it type
of deal. So this portion, I feel is kind of
like it moves the story forward and gives you kind
of the thought process of where people are going and

(53:49):
kind of you know, the men Is scene of Dracula
gets to the point where it's like, Okay, we need
to do something about it now. After all these other incidences,
this right here gives us proof that this is a
vampire that we need to deal with it. So I
think this portion is really interesting because it kind of
catapults you into the final act of this film and

(54:10):
basically the demise of Dracula.

Speaker 7 (54:12):
So I think it's fun.

Speaker 5 (54:14):
I think that the acting is done well and the
introduction of Mena is really fun because you get to
see the actress, you know, really kind of work that
out too, and I think she does a really decent
job too.

Speaker 4 (54:25):
Well. How about you, Joey, what do you think of
the whole establishment as some of the lore happening right
here in this whole sequence between Dracula and Van Helsing
As soon as.

Speaker 6 (54:34):
He recognized it was a mirror, she slapped it away
like he's afraid of it almost or insult it even,
and then he's just like, oh, I don't like mirrors.

Speaker 7 (54:43):
It's like, I don't know, how can I look so bad?
Gets it away.

Speaker 6 (54:48):
I don't know how I feel about it. It was
an interesting choice.

Speaker 4 (54:51):
Personally, I think it's kind of neat that we actually
see some of the some of the classic lore coming
out on the silver screen. It kind of helps establish
later on what we get out.

Speaker 6 (55:01):
Of a lot of other vampire movies.

Speaker 4 (55:03):
What about you, Tim, would you think of this whole
sequence with the Van Helsing.

Speaker 3 (55:07):
I mean, there's a couple things in this that I
really enjoyed. I mean, one the mirror. I mean, obviously
they decided to put this mirror in this little humidor,
which is, you know, kind of interesting. But again, I
think it prevents them from having to break a lot
of expensive mirrors on set, you know, So I think
that was the choice, and it gives us that, you know,
vampires can't see their reflections, so it reinforces that, yes,

(55:29):
Dracula is a vampire. We all know that, but it
confirms it to them when they see it. There's no doubt.
Now I'm opening this up. I'm pointing out to this
guy like, hey, look, dude, there's no reflection here. So
he is one hundred percent of vampire. And this begins
the dance of death between Van Helsing and Count Dracula.

(55:49):
The funniest part is that Count Dracula is a little obsessive.

Speaker 8 (55:55):
You think you'd be like, oh, I've been found out,
I wouldn't go to find another victim. No, he's just
gonna keep coming for for the same victim, for mina.
You know, he's just I've started here, Yes, I mean
that what will be in my conquest no matter to
him what, you know, he just I think anybody else
will be like, oh I've been found out, you know what,

(56:16):
I'm just gonna go find some somebody else.

Speaker 3 (56:19):
To you know, turn or you know, completely drain of blood.
But no, he just once he starts, he cannot quit. So,
I mean, the character is obviously super obsessive, like he
just can't let it go. Once he's decided that somebody
is to be his next victim slash child of the night,
he's gonna he's going to go full force to complete

(56:42):
the task before he moves on to his next victims.
So uh, it's almost like he's got a little bit
of a serial killer instinct in him, like he's just
got to finish the next one before he goes on
the next one.

Speaker 2 (56:52):
Kind of interesting in a major fall in.

Speaker 3 (56:54):
The Dragon character that he can't walk away when he
rises he's been found out and instead of again walking away,
he just kind of starts to do this little dance
with Van Helstein, like you've discovered things that you know,
mortals should not know. Because of that, you've now put
yourself in danger, and we're gonna come to fisticuffs over this,
you know. I mean, at some point one of us is,

(57:15):
we're both gonna we're both gonna enter Thunderdome. Only one
of us is leaving well.

Speaker 4 (57:20):
And that's the one thing that I didn't quite get
right off the bat is so Dracula's confronting Van Helsing,
It's like, why didn't just you know, snap his neck
right there? But again we get another another thing of
the lore where you know, Van Helsing uses the cross
to keep Dracula at bay because Dracula tries to, uh, oh,

(57:42):
what's the word I'm looking for, put him in a trance, hypnotize.

Speaker 2 (57:45):
Him, whammy him. I call it the whammy, the vampire whammy.

Speaker 4 (57:50):
Yeah. But evidently Van Helsing's, you know, his will is
too strong. He's like the perfect green lantern and pulls
out his cross as well to ward off old drack Well.

Speaker 3 (58:02):
And then know where he's at now that they know
he's a vampire and then know where he's at. What's
the problem, Just wait for him to go back to
his coffin finish the job. Like, let's not wait for
the next following night to you know, readdress this obvious,
you know, undead issue that we're dealing with. Let's just
wait till you know, the sun comes up and let's

(58:22):
finish him off. I don't understand why we have to wait.
It makes no sense to me.

Speaker 4 (58:27):
Yeah, I don't get it. You know, it's it's it's
like all monster movies. Why wait to wait till midnight
to go kill the monster in the middle of the day. Yeah,
big story of faults among many many a vampire films.

Speaker 2 (58:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (58:39):
In fact, I was just watching Vampires with James Wood. Oh,
I know where they're like clearing out that vampire nest
in Mexico and they're like okay, and they bust open
the doors and stuff. Why not just spread the whole
building down? It seems very simple. Let's just start a
major fire. They can't escape because they can't leave, and

(58:59):
it'll eventually burned down to where they have no cover.
It seems like the perfect solution, Like we don't need
to bring all these weapons. We just need to bring
like a couple of packets of you know, oscar Meyer wieners,
a few buns and some charcolate wider fluid and some matches,
and the job is done.

Speaker 4 (59:16):
Nice, nice roa some wienies. Well, I tell you what, listener,
if you have a if you have an answer to
Tim's solution, please email a show at Mamreview Podcast at
gmail dot com. Anyway, so let's let's head back over
to see check out what poor Jonathan Harker is doing
with Mina. So Harker visits Mina on a terrace. She

(59:36):
speaks of how she how much she loves knights and fogs.
A bat flies above them and squeaks to Mina. She
then attacks Harker, but then Helsing and Seaward save him.
Mina confesses what Dracula has done to her and tells
her that their love is finished. Dracula then hypnotizes Briggs
the nurse, into removing the wool spin from Mina's neck

(59:59):
and opening the windows. Van Helsing and Harker see Renfield
heading for Carfax Avvy. Arriving there, they see Dracula with Mina.
When Harker shouts to Mina Dracula thinks Renfield has betrayed
him by leading them here and shoves him down the
staircase to his death. So is it just mear guys
or did this stairwell look exceedingly too long for the set?

Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
Like?

Speaker 4 (01:00:23):
Who has a stairwell that long? Leading to a matt
pain of all things? It just it seemed very odd
to me, I mean poor set design in my opinion, Joey,
since you're our resident film student, what did you think
of this whole sequence with Renfield and Dracula.

Speaker 6 (01:00:40):
I'm gonna pull up the actual staircase here. How does
Dracula afford this stuff? I mean he did, Like, wasn't
Renfield like kind of like the real estate guy? Is?
Is he hypnotizing him into fantastic deals? Is that part
of this?

Speaker 3 (01:00:56):
I think if you're living hundreds of years in your
the blood of you know, thousands of victims, you know
you might pick up a little pocket change along the way.

Speaker 6 (01:01:05):
He's stealing people's fortunes. Of course, Yeah, it sucks to
be Renfield. Him falling down that staircase has a conclusion,
but it's not in this film. It's in Dracula's daughter.
I don't know It's like he really was a toady,
a lackey. He was all in for Dracula, and he
was such an enthusiast that he spilled the beans on him.

(01:01:27):
I don't know, Renfield, he gets the short end of
the stick. He gets tossed away, he gets used like
like you know, well, he's a vampire, he's a parasite.
He uses people and he throws them away. We get
a love letter to the character in the Renfield movie
that came out a few years ago, and then we

(01:01:48):
also get a love letter to Bail Lagosi with from
Nicholas case and his unique betrayal of the character, and
we get to see what would happen if they just
they these guys are in this toxic relationship for hundreds
of years instead of it ending on that at the
bottom of that staircase. So I recommend checking that out.

(01:02:09):
I'm not gonna say that I loved that movie, but
I will say that I'm glad I watched it once.

Speaker 4 (01:02:15):
Gotcha, Well, how about you, cyber Aside from Nicholas Cage's
Dracula in Renfield, what did you think of the sequence.

Speaker 5 (01:02:23):
This is a great sequence, I mean quite a bit
goes on here. We you know, we get a lot
between Mina and Dracola again, we get a lot of
stuff going on between them and him hypnotizing her and
getting her to do his bidding and stuff like that.
We have, of course Harker that's mixed in with this
and all that kind of stuff, and you know, unfortunately

(01:02:45):
it kind of his love for Mina, unfortunately because of
the whole Drakula thing is slipping away, and she's, you know,
because of being hypnotized, is falling in love with him
instead of you know, instead of Harker. And you know,
I think David Manners, you know, Harker is really decent.
I think he does a really good job betraying this character.

(01:03:06):
And a funny fact about him is actually he never
watched this film in the ninety eight years lived, and
you know, I wish he had watched himself, because he
was absolutely fantastic as Harker.

Speaker 7 (01:03:18):
He did a great job.

Speaker 5 (01:03:19):
He was awesome, and you know, and I think that
he played the character very well. And it's too bad
because I think he had a really great eye for
playing this type of character. The whole Renfield thing throughout
this sequence, you know, is always fun and enjoyable Dwight
Fried to win his great craziness and it's just really fantastic,

(01:03:42):
you know, leading up to unfortunately, his demise where he
gets shoved down the ship staircase and you're just like, you're.

Speaker 4 (01:03:48):
Like, no, not Renfield.

Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
No.

Speaker 5 (01:03:51):
And I think that you know, he dies beautifully too
in his scene, and Dwight really did a good job
of you know, taking that out and pretending to die
and all that kind of good stuff. And I really
thought he did a great job there, you know, portraying
this crazy character of Renfield and just kind of his
ultimate like you know thought process of you know, I'm

(01:04:14):
going to get rats for the rest of my life
and I'll live eternally, you know, type of deal. And
he just played that to the tee. But yeah, I
mean this whole sequence is really fun. I mean it
leads up to a great the great colimactic conclusion to
this film. You know, we by this point we start
losing several characters and.

Speaker 7 (01:04:31):
And all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 5 (01:04:32):
But at the same time, I think that it plays
out very well, very beautifully, and it's just really entertaining.

Speaker 4 (01:04:40):
Nice, nice, Well how about you, Timm, you wannything To
add to the lead up to the conclusion of this film.

Speaker 3 (01:04:45):
Yeah, this is where a lot of it falls apart
from me. Just I don't share cybers setting it on this.
There's so much wrong. I mean, first of all, if
wolf ban is what is going to keep Draguly at bay,
why you just take a couple little twigs and throw
it on her neck and hand it out to there
and things like that.

Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
It's a freaking weed. It's everywhere.

Speaker 3 (01:05:09):
We've got it in Illinoi, it's here in Ellinoi, it's
all over England. Dude, just bring a bail of that
thing and throw it all over the room. It's just
it makes no sense why you would just grab two
or three twigs of it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:22):
Be done.

Speaker 3 (01:05:23):
You know, if that's if that's what's gonna keep you know,
the baddies at bay, you're gonna bring that stuff in
by the truckload.

Speaker 2 (01:05:30):
So that's the first thing.

Speaker 3 (01:05:31):
Second of all, John presenting the cross to Mina and
she's like, oh, don't. At first, she tries to convince
him to make it go away. And second of all,
then when he pulls it out, she acts like, you know,
he just bitch slapped her. Dude, it's a crucifix. It's
you know, Jesus out a cross, it's our Lord. You
know at that time, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:05:52):
All these characters are Christian.

Speaker 3 (01:05:54):
Don't you think that would raise a couple of alarms
when she's like make it go ad and what to
see it?

Speaker 2 (01:05:58):
It's horrible. I can't talk about it. That's not normal
for the times, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:06:03):
Again, something you know, there should be some red flags
popping up there, there should be some flares going off
of the air, like this is not normal for somebody
to act this way when they see a crucifix.

Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
So again I have a problem with that.

Speaker 3 (01:06:18):
It's just it's just stupidly weird. Those two things alone
just take it away from you know, to take a
lot of the power of these scenes away from me,
just because it makes no damn.

Speaker 2 (01:06:32):
Sense outside of that.

Speaker 3 (01:06:33):
I mean, it does, you know, lead us towards you know,
the end result of our film, which it does an
okay job of that, but again, there's just such weird
plot holes and things that doesn't make any sense that
they do. It takes me out of the story a
little bit. And then we've got, you know, count Dracula's
final encounter with Renfield, who has as far as he's concerned,

(01:06:56):
betrayed him.

Speaker 2 (01:06:57):
This harkens back to.

Speaker 3 (01:06:58):
What I was speaking of earlier, where the studio is like, look,
Dracula cannot attack and touch Renfield because that may be
considered to be a little on the home of phobic side.
He can only attack women. So again, that's why we
only see the sisters. There's no male vampires running around
things like that, so that's why we see him kind

(01:07:20):
of go. He does grab his neck, but then we
cut away. We come back and poor Renfield's just flying
down the staircase and perishes. You know, although I'll give
whoever came down that staircase if that's not a dummy.
He did a great job of just rolling down the
staircase to his death. That looked really good. But it
just again, this is where the studio intervenes and says, no, look.

Speaker 2 (01:07:40):
We can't have any of that. For as weird as
that is, I don't understand.

Speaker 3 (01:07:45):
But you know, we got the Wolfman coming out ten
years later, and we have ment tussling there and it
doesn't seem to, you know, set off any home of
phobic flags. But I can't question the times because I.

Speaker 2 (01:07:57):
Didn't live in them.

Speaker 3 (01:07:58):
Yeah, but yeah, just there's just so many weird holes
and things that aren't right with this end part of
this that it just kind of pulled me out of it.

Speaker 6 (01:08:08):
So what you're saying is, ideally we want to see
Dracula sucking on another man's neck.

Speaker 3 (01:08:14):
I just he was never going to suck on Renfield's
neck to kill him. But why did we not even
see him tussle on it?

Speaker 6 (01:08:21):
And he hasn't even turnim that way, like like she
even said, like he opened up his own vein and
made her drink from it. Yeah, there's so many very
interesting things that people say in this movie we didn't
get to see. Yeah, we described Renfield and the thousands
of rats and the red Mist and the yeah you
know that whole sequence, and that's a really good, you

(01:08:41):
know monologue. It would have been a lot cooler to
see it.

Speaker 3 (01:08:45):
Yeah, I mean the rat thing they didn't do because
they said that people were really you know, they didn't
like to see rats. They were a horrible thing. Nobody
wanted to see that, so they didn't want to put
in a film. That's why early in the Crypt we
see things like armordillos and stuff instead of rats running
around possums.

Speaker 6 (01:09:02):
Thank you for bringing up the armadillos. That was so strange.

Speaker 3 (01:09:06):
Well, I guess Armadillo's kind of had a a stigmata
about them that they supposedly would go into graveyards and
dig up corpses. I don't know why, but that was,
you know, some kind of lore about them. So that's
why we see them in this Dracula film. But we
don't see rats because they it was unacceptable to see
them at the time. And there's other things we miss

(01:09:28):
out too, to your point, Joey, we never see anythangs, right,
Dracula has no fangs in this, even though we know
that the he'se using fangs. They talk about seeing puncture uns,
never see any puncturings. So there are definitely some weird
things that they just left out of this for whatever reason,
I don't know, but I mean they talk about it,
you know, you know, it's discussed, but we never visually

(01:09:48):
see it, which would have been much cooler, as you
pointed out.

Speaker 4 (01:09:52):
Which I think goes a lot more to like what
you said in the past about other movies of this time.
You know that it's based on plays and and theater
plays and theater acting, and they didn't have those kind
of effects in the theater.

Speaker 3 (01:10:05):
Yeah, but I think the Nose s Faratu film that
comes out before this, the Silent film, I think, Yeah,
I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure he does.

Speaker 6 (01:10:14):
Yeah, I do agree he did.

Speaker 4 (01:10:16):
He did have things in that movie. But yeah, I
at that point, I don't know. I mean, and again,
part of this too is, you know, we're getting towards
the end and I'm starting to feel as though this
movie is getting rushed. You know, we're trying to get
wrap up the movie to like the hour and ten
or hour and fifteen that a lot of these movies
in the thirties would was leading towards. Yeah, I concur

(01:10:40):
but so yeah, so then we finally do get the standoff.
You know what we've been accumulating this whole hour and
you know ten minutes for is is this five minute
sequence of Van helsing, you know, stalking and hunting down
Dracula and the whole sequence of him, you know, taking
Dracula out, and we don't get to see it. We

(01:11:03):
hear it, and we see the reaction of Mina, and
we just see Jonathan Harker, you know, find Mina in
this long convoluted reason of walking around downstairs in the basement.
But we don't see the death of Dracula. And I
gotta say that I think that's the biggest mistake about
this movie is we don't we don't get to see
the action of Van Helsing taking out the main bad guy.

(01:11:26):
I felt very anti climactic in that.

Speaker 2 (01:11:29):
Well, yeah, it's it's.

Speaker 3 (01:11:30):
Just so ridiculous. I mean, we have count Dracula carry
off Mina. He's now got his victim. He's gonna carry
her off, he's gonna turn her. But the sun, I
guess they mentioned that the sun's coming up, so that's
what kind of stops him. And he goes and runs
and gets into it's not even a coughin boxes of
dirty yeah, his box of dirt or whatever, Like, oh yeah,

(01:11:53):
let's go hide there because nobody knows you're living in an abby.
Nobody knows you know that you're down there, Like they
can't search, so have you while you're there. So it's
just and he't Van Hailston like, go see if you
can find me a rock or something so that we
can kill him.

Speaker 2 (01:12:07):
Dude.

Speaker 3 (01:12:07):
The whole place is in shambles. There's rocks everywhere. I
don't think the dude needs to go find one for you.

Speaker 2 (01:12:12):
They're right there. Plus, you know, he.

Speaker 3 (01:12:15):
Kind of quietly opens up the box of dirt and
and closes it, and the next scene he's just ripping
the entire lid of this box apart, you know, because
apparently vampires don't wake up during you know, the day
at all.

Speaker 2 (01:12:29):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:12:29):
And then yeah, you kind of get the anti climactic
you hear him kill him, because you're like, oh, you know,
and I again nineteen thirty one, I don't really expect
you to see that. They're not going to show you
that in any way, shape or for them. They're going
to go back to, as Cyber points out, a bit
of theater of the mind. You know, they're they're not
going to like in our previous podcast when we were

(01:12:51):
talking about the werewolf stuff and you see the you know,
them beating down the were wolf.

Speaker 2 (01:12:56):
You don't actually see them beat the werewolf. It's the
end of the mind.

Speaker 3 (01:12:59):
You understand that that's what's happening, but you only see
the guy moving back and forth.

Speaker 2 (01:13:03):
Here again we understand he's got the stake.

Speaker 3 (01:13:06):
Of course, you know, John has now brought him a
rock amongst the thousand of rocks down there, that's what
he needs. Not the rocket's a middle bar, and know
how he finds that among it, But and that's what
he's gonna do. And then it, of course, since you
know Mia or Mina hasn't been completely turned, she snaps
out of it in a very weird way the way

(01:13:27):
she kind of comes out of it, and it's an
almost weirdly sexual way.

Speaker 2 (01:13:31):
She's got to touching herself and stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:13:33):
And she's like, I got to hear you calling, but
I couldn't respond. And then Van Helsing's like, you know, oh,
you two need to leave, but I'm not going to
quite leave. You see them walking up the staircase and
then it just ends. So I think there's more to
that that again hit the editing room floor. I think
there's a whole section there missing.

Speaker 2 (01:13:52):
That we may never know.

Speaker 3 (01:13:53):
And it kind of bothers me because I feel like
there's no closure. It's like, oh, there's something more you're
not knowing me. Plus now I know after Cyber isn't
for me. There's an entire you know, monologue that happens
at the end that I have no idea what it
is because it no longer exists, So thanks Cyber. Now
I feel doubly that I have not gotten any closure.

(01:14:14):
It's a it's a double whabby of nonclosure for me.
I will not sleep tonight. Thank you so much.

Speaker 7 (01:14:19):
You're welcome.

Speaker 4 (01:14:20):
I feel the same way. I felt like there wasn't
a whole lot of closure to this version of Dracula.
What about you, Cyber, What did you think of the
end of this film.

Speaker 5 (01:14:30):
I mean, it's your typical ending of a universal horror film.
I feel, you know, we get the bad guy at
the end, the good guys win, you know, type of deal,
and you know, I don't think there's anything wrong with it,
you know, just like all the other films of this
kind of genre, it seems rushed the course.

Speaker 7 (01:14:47):
Uh, you got to the point real quickly.

Speaker 5 (01:14:50):
Uh. But you know, Draco's demise is great. It's really
done well, you know, with you know, everything we kind
of mentioned throughout the this you know podcast tonight, you know,
with you know, not seeing any bite marks and not
seeing the fangs and you know, seeing blood and stuff
like this. And I think even his demise was that
was done pretty well for its time, and because this

(01:15:12):
film was actually you know, made before pre Code. It
was only after nineteen thirty six when it got re
released is when things got edited out, So there were
other things that were still there for those four years
or five years before it got re released. So it's
too bad, you know. So all those people got to
see it when I first released in thirty one, thirty two,

(01:15:33):
thirty thirty three, four or thirty five, you know, they
got to see the complete diversion, you know, and so
anybody after nineteen through six, of course, you know, didn't.
So I mean, I think that with what ending we
did get, I think it is still very entertaining and
done well. But at the same time, it's too bad
that we don't get that full closure, as Tim was

(01:15:53):
just mentioning that he feels that he doesn't have that
full closure. But I still think that it's you know, well,
I mean, the the standoff between you know, Van Helsing
and and uh Drakula is really great and works out
really well, and you know, I think that it ends,
you know, just like any other vampire film would you know,

(01:16:15):
would happen, you know, getting Dracula through the heart and
killing him, and you know, of course, thankfully because that happens.

Speaker 7 (01:16:21):
Mina returns to normal.

Speaker 5 (01:16:23):
So I think that it's a really solid ending to
a very fun film. Uh.

Speaker 7 (01:16:29):
You know, not everyone's gonna agree. I get that.

Speaker 5 (01:16:31):
Uh, But overall, I think it's just a very entertaining film,
and I think a great part part of the great
universal monster film series.

Speaker 4 (01:16:40):
Nice nice Well said, Well, Joey, what about you? What
do you think this final standoff between Dracula and Van Helsina.

Speaker 6 (01:16:46):
It's a very anti climactic. It's like I opened a box. Oh,
I need a I need a steak. I'm gonna make
a stake, all right. Uh, and it's over. I did
like the Mina's read. I say her name right, it's Mia, right,
Mina Mina. I like Mina's reaction. I like how she

(01:17:07):
winced like she felt it, and then she was also
kind of released from his spell over her. But then
the movie's just abruptly over. I'm reading a little bit
about the Spanish version. It doesn't say a whole lot,
but they are saying that as Eva and Harka leave,
Van Helsing prays over Renfield's body. That's interesting, huh. And

(01:17:30):
then in Dracula's Daughter, we find out that having destroyed
Count Dracula Professor van Helsing is arrested by two Whitby
policemen because they happened upon Dracula's body with a stake
driven through his heart. Well, doesn't have much of a defense,
Van Helsing says, Well, but because the vampire has been

(01:17:51):
dead for over five hundred years, it can't be considered murder.
But they have a body and there's a stake through
his heart, and that starts the plot line of Dracula's
not worth watching at all. But that's interesting, it's kind
of that's a fun twist. It's like, yeah, but there's
this fucking dead body here, there's a stake through his heart,
and we don't believe in vampires, so you're going to jail.

(01:18:12):
Fuck face, we gotta arrest somebody for this. There's another
guy with his neck fucking twisted down a staircase. Did
you do that too?

Speaker 2 (01:18:22):
All right, well that's pretty much Dracula, guys.

Speaker 4 (01:18:25):
So with all that reviewed, let's go ahead and take
a look at our death clock. So is it worth
taking the hour and fifteen minutes off your death clock?
I'll go to you first, Cyber, since you were our
guests this evening. What do you say, Yeah, your nay,
I say, yay.

Speaker 5 (01:18:41):
I think it's definitely worth at least one watch for
those out there, especially if you are a movie fan,
especially this classic, which is a huge part of you know,
an influence of great cinema, and it really is the
you know, the father of all the modern vampire films
we've gotten over the last ninety years. So if you

(01:19:04):
want to see where a lot of the ideas came from,
watching this will give you a great idea of what
that is. So yeah, I say it's worth that hour
and fifteen.

Speaker 4 (01:19:13):
All right, Well how about you, Tim? Is it worth
taking that hour and fifteen off your death clock for
the original nineteen thirty one Dracula.

Speaker 2 (01:19:20):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:19:21):
Man, I'm gonna end up being like our friend Dungeon
Master Rick from the podcast here when we were talking
about Duck Soup.

Speaker 2 (01:19:32):
Dude. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:19:34):
I don't have to say this one. It's gonna be
a twofold answer. If you want to watch it just
because you love horror films, hard pass it, just it,
let it go. If you want to see the Kickstarter
movie that basically brings all the universal monster movies to
the forefront and the hor engoneer as a whole, then

(01:19:59):
this is probably worth watching for you. It may be
only a one time watch. It's definitely not the best
story of them all. Also, if you're a fan of
Bella Legosi and you want to see you know, basically
probably the first major portrayal of Count Dracula and the
most exaggerated way possible, again worth watching it, totally worth
watching for the Renfield if nothing else, both of them.

Speaker 2 (01:20:22):
That brings something to it.

Speaker 3 (01:20:23):
And I'll even say it, you know Edward Van Sloan's
Van hailsing pretty pretty decent. So there are three strong
characters that lend to you wanting to see it. But
the story, I think it's the story that debt detracts
from these actors' performances in here and makes it kind
of a hard watch. So yeah, again, Fanny Universal Monsters,

(01:20:45):
watch it. Want to watch it because you like some
of these actors. Definitely at least a one time view.
If you're just a person that loves, you know, horror films, due,
there's better dragons out there, they're just this, So go
watch one of those.

Speaker 2 (01:21:00):
You'll probably be happier already.

Speaker 4 (01:21:03):
Well how about you, Joey, what do you say? Is
it worth taking that hour fifteen minutes after death clock.

Speaker 6 (01:21:08):
I'm going to give it a marginal yes, and only
because of Dwight Fry. And I'm not the only big
fan of Dwight Fry. Alice Cooper as a track that
he recorded was the Ballad of Dwight Fry. The Canadian
punk rockers SNFU had a track, or actually they had

(01:21:32):
artwork that was on the cover on their albums that
was meant to be Dwight Dwight Fry. An Italian Slovenian
rock band Devil Doll has the likeness of Dwight Fry
in some of their albums, so basically like Dwight Fry
is the reason why watched this movie as Renfield and

(01:21:56):
he tragically died at the age of forty four, are
just traveling on a bus through Hollywood. Uh, so that
that could be you know, that's a young age to
die of a heart attack. So either too many steaks
red meat or maybe maybe we know why his performance
was so good cocaine. Not sure, maybe a little bit

(01:22:20):
of both. But h R, I p uh to Dwight Fry, Renfield,
you were the reason to watch this movie already.

Speaker 4 (01:22:30):
Well, I am going in the opposite direction of all
you guys, and I'm I'm leaning more towards the negative,
and I'm gonna say no, it's not really worth taking
time off your death clock to watch watch something a
little more entertaining and.

Speaker 6 (01:22:44):
It has a little more story, a little.

Speaker 4 (01:22:46):
More pizzaze, and watch Abbott and Costello meet meet Frankenstein
because it's got Dracula in there with bell as bella
Legosi and that's more, far more entertaining of a storyline
to watch, or just watch another Dracula film. But if
you want to see something with the original Bello Legosi,
go check out that abbat in Costello. That would be that.

(01:23:07):
That way you can get your your bellow Legosi fix.

Speaker 6 (01:23:10):
Fw Murnau's nose frat. Who's a better Dracula movie in
my opinion?

Speaker 4 (01:23:15):
Gotcha?

Speaker 2 (01:23:16):
Hey, Tim, have you noticed.

Speaker 4 (01:23:18):
How long our episode seem to go when we record?

Speaker 3 (01:23:23):
Like, yeah, Matt, of course I have. I'm you know,
I'm one of the freaking editors.

Speaker 4 (01:23:31):
So h yeah, yeah, I know. I mean we both
have to deal with all the UM's and the no's
and audio leveling. Don't get me started on Joey's long
diatribes about bad horror moviments.

Speaker 2 (01:23:45):
Hey, those are well.

Speaker 6 (01:23:47):
Thought out opinions.

Speaker 2 (01:23:48):
Okay, okay, this is a thirty second ad. All right, man,
what is your point?

Speaker 4 (01:23:53):
Well, there's this really cool service out there called pot
at a dot com where they will edit the podcast
for you. Imagine you not having to spend hours listening
to your own voice only determine that it just doesn't
flow right.

Speaker 2 (01:24:06):
The team at pod edit will spend.

Speaker 4 (01:24:07):
Their time in interview bringing you a high quality production edit.
All right, Where can we get more info on this service, Matthew, Well,
it's right there in the name pot at it dot com.
If you love the podcast but you don't always have
time to edit, then check them out at pot at
it dot com. And hey, tell them, ma'am sents you
for a special twenty five percent discount on your first

(01:24:29):
six episodes.

Speaker 6 (01:24:30):
Guys, really, Lloyd Kaufman is a freaking genius.

Speaker 4 (01:24:38):
Alrighty well, gentlemen. That brings us two feedback. Folks, We
would love to hear what you think of our show,
so please leave us some feedback. You can email our
show at Manreview Podcast at gmail dot com and you
can have your email read right here on the show
and commented on and we'd like to know what you
think of what we are talking about, especially in this

(01:25:01):
Halloween Horror month, you know. But if you don't want
to send us an email, go ahead and leave us
comments on YouTube or Spotify and we'll read it here too,
or we'll also comments back to you on said platforms.
All right, gentlemen, Well, normally this is where we would
ask what are you watching? But because it's our Halloween
Horror month and we're focusing on Dracula this evening tonight,

(01:25:21):
I'm gonna ask you the question, what is your favorite
version of Dracula? Not a vampire movie, but just Dracula himself.
There's been so many movies out there of it. What's
your favorite one? I'll go over you first, tim what
was your favorite Dracula film?

Speaker 3 (01:25:38):
Mine's not a film, So my favorite rendition of Dracula
is a James Woods SNL skit or he's screening his
victims for diseases.

Speaker 2 (01:25:48):
It's by far one of.

Speaker 3 (01:25:50):
The funniest things I've ever seen, especially with James Woods.
I think you probably can google that or you know,
put it into YouTube. You can find a clip of it.
It's well worth the four or five minutes that the
skit ran to watch.

Speaker 4 (01:26:05):
Nice. Well, how about you, Cyber, what's your favorite version
of Dracula.

Speaker 5 (01:26:09):
I'm gonna go new school, and I gotta say Nicholas
Cage and Renfield. It was absolutely freaking fantastic. His over
the board topness of the character was just so freaking funny.
Especially the scene where after Renfield has fleed him and
is living on his own and he finds out that
he's in this apartment by himself and he's like in
there talking to him and he's like talking to him

(01:26:30):
like he's his wife. Is absolutely freaking hilarious. And I
crack up every single time I watched that film. It
just was absolutely fantastic, and I love how over the
top Nicholas Cage it is.

Speaker 7 (01:26:43):
It's a great rendition, I think.

Speaker 6 (01:26:45):
Nice.

Speaker 1 (01:26:45):
Nice.

Speaker 4 (01:26:46):
You know, I did see Renfield and I did enjoy
Nicholas Cage's version of Dracula. I thought it was a
really good film. How about you, Joey, what's your favorite Dracula.

Speaker 6 (01:26:55):
I'm gonna go with Castlevania for the Nintendo Entertainment System.
After you you lop off his head with a whip,
he turns into this big goofy monster that's hard to describe.
And in the other sequels of the game, he has
other forms and and you get to fight them and
they're they're they're bizarre. Castlevania three is pretty pretty out there.

(01:27:20):
Go ahead and look up that final boss and I'm
gonna say he's he's pretty terrific. In uh Symphathy Symphony
of the Night, you get the most Japanese final form
of Dracula that you can possibly imagine that you get
the fight and it's nuts. It looks more like something

(01:27:42):
hr Geiger would come up with. So I'm gonna go
with Castlevania.

Speaker 4 (01:27:46):
Well, Joey, I gotta I gotta commend you for at least,
you know, uh, handling the video game side of our
podcast since Rick couldn't join us this evening. It's nice
to see that you're at least, uh, you know, letting
that flag fly.

Speaker 6 (01:28:01):
Can I tell you what my worst is? Sure, I'm
gonna have to go with Dario Argento's Dracula three D,
where Rutger Hower uh needed needed to pay some bills
and plays van Helsing and you get to watch a
cgi praying mantis, which is Dracula. He transforms into a

(01:28:23):
CGI praying mantis kill a guy nice very graphically. So
that's the worst one. And just watch that scene on
YouTube and don't watch the rest of that movie.

Speaker 4 (01:28:34):
Gotcha, Thanks, I'll keep that editor advisement, all right. Well,
my favorite Dracula. It took me a lot of a
lot of thinking, you know, because I like Dracula. He's
probably one of my favorite characters in the in the
Universal Monsters world, I guess you could say, but I
think I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go campy, I'm gonna

(01:28:54):
go a little fun.

Speaker 2 (01:28:55):
I'm gonna go with.

Speaker 4 (01:28:57):
Al Lewis from The Monsters. I loved him as Grandpa
Monster aka Count Dracula, even though never I came out.

Speaker 6 (01:29:07):
They reveal that he is Count Dracula.

Speaker 4 (01:29:09):
Well they call him the Count, and they call him
Grandpa Monster that but you know it's it's implied. Yeah,
it's implied that he's Dracula.

Speaker 6 (01:29:16):
So he wears the outfit and he's from Transylvania. I
thought you were going to say, Leslie Nielsen and Dracula
dead and loving it.

Speaker 4 (01:29:25):
It was on my honorable mentions list.

Speaker 6 (01:29:27):
I like when they do the hair from the the
bram Stokers nineteen nineties Dracula. Yeah, yeah, like two but
the big buns.

Speaker 4 (01:29:37):
But all right, well, I want to thank you Cyber
for being a part of our Halloween Horror review months.
Can you let our listeners know where they can find
more of your wonderful tones?

Speaker 5 (01:29:49):
Yes, I can do that, sh So if you enjoy
me here on the podcast with Dracula, you can find me.
You can find my sodo content on the Cyber and
Anta Chuck. You can find me on you YouTube x, Facebook, Instagram, Patreon,
many other places. And then also you can find me
on the ms use Beating Edge where we talk and
discuss all kinds of different things and all that kind

(01:30:11):
of good stuff. So if you enjoyed me here on
this on this wonderful podcast, you could find me under
those two things. Just look under YouTube seven x shock
or the ems use Bleeding Edge.

Speaker 4 (01:30:22):
You know, I find it funny that some of your
Bela Lagosi kind of slips into Mario I was just
waiting for, like you say.

Speaker 2 (01:30:28):
Hey, it's to be a Mario.

Speaker 7 (01:30:30):
He's a gonna win hey at the Mario.

Speaker 2 (01:30:34):
Nice? Nice?

Speaker 3 (01:30:35):
Thanks for listen in the Middle Aged Reviews Podcast. We
hope you've enjoyed our review of Dracula. I know we've
had a fantastic time bringing it to you, and if
you like what you heard, please smash the white button,
subscribe or leave a comment and share it.

Speaker 2 (01:30:49):
With your friends.

Speaker 4 (01:30:51):
Follow us on Facebook, X Blue Sky and Instagram. Have
a common through suggestion, then email the show at the
Man Review Podcast email dot com.

Speaker 6 (01:31:01):
The worst casting ever for Dracula would be George Hamilton
in Love at First Bite, a man who is He
is well known for his luxurious, very deep suntan. Does
not fucking make sense.

Speaker 2 (01:31:22):
It's a spray tan gets with the times.

Speaker 6 (01:31:25):
Orange Dracula. That sounds like a delicious treat. I'd like
the orange Dracula.

Speaker 5 (01:31:30):
Please do anything

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Episode 77 - Halloween Horror Month (2025) Dracula (Orange Dracula, is a tasty drink)

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 77 - Halloween Horror Month (2025) Dracula (Orange Dracula, is a tasty drink)