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Feb 25 15 6:32 AM
Feb 25 15 11:39 AM
Count Gamula wrote:Here's a link to a short clip of a scene in my edit blending the English and Spanish language versions of DRACULA. It shows how the scene where we first see Dracula entering Mina's bedroom was supposed to begin, with the hypnotized nurse opening the terrace door and removing the wolfbane, not with the bat at the window which was taken from the earlier scene when Dracula entered Lucy's room. Not sure if this will work for everyone but thought I'd give it a shot.Dracula U.S./Spanish clip
Feb 25 15 4:08 PM
Based upon your observations, you just know that the Transylvania scenes will be the highlight of the film, but after that it will be all downhill as the talky sections from the stage version play out.
I think I'd have tried to sell the writer and director on the following idea.
Begin with the storm-tossed Vesta on its voyage. That's how the 1979 remake chose to begin, and it serves to kick matters off with some excitement, as the forces of nature show off a dark and dangerous side. Depict the crew going mad and Renfield screaming, but eliminate any shots of Dracula. This ought to be very effective, as this segment will play out without any dialogue, much as if it were the indeed last hurrah for the era of silent cinema.
Continue after the storm. The ship is found grounded, the captain tied and dead, and the strange litrtle man down in the hold. The newspaper headline and bizarre teaser text. What on earth is going on?
Thus, we first meet Dracula when he preys upon the flower girl – much as we met him in the Castle Films abridgement. A very strange and exotic foreigner appears, and there is a murder. Then, on to Van Helsing, and let the film play out from there.
Indeed, it's quite the mystery, with the blood-drained victims and the goings-on around the mental hospital and the Seward residence.
At some point, once the evidence has mounted, van Helsing confronts Renfield, and the man and goads him into letting loose his story. “Why not tell you? ... “
Now, fade in from Renfield's face to the carriage weaving through the Carpathian mountains, the frightened peasants, the business at the inn, Renfield's arrival at Borgo Pass ... and so on.
Continue until Dracula and his servant leave for England. Play out the shipboard scenes once more, but with the occasional cut to Dracula now in evidence.
When Renfield is discovered in the midst of his post-storm cackling, fade back to the present.
Now, Van Helsing may announce that “Dracula is our vampire!” It's then on to the efforts to find Dracula before it's too late for Mina.
This alternative structure suggests the design of The Mummy, with the flashback providing some impressive scenes and a late climax. Word of Mouth would not urge prospective patrons to leave once the ship arrives, but rather to wait around for the carriage ride.
I don't think that one could create this version by editing existing material. Much of it could work, but I can't find a convenient breakpoint for the flashback. Certainly it would have to be before the 54-minute mark of the original wherein Dracula rises from his coffin onscreen. Maybe about the time that Renfiled swears that he’s never heard the name.
Perhaps the editor could have convinced them to shoot a new scene with Van Helsing demanding that Renfield explain and succeeding, perhaps via hypnosis.
How do you think a version so constructed would have played out?
Feb 25 15 4:25 PM
Feb 25 15 6:00 PM
Feb 26 15 5:00 AM
Feb 26 15 2:57 PM
Feb 26 15 4:22 PM
Feb 27 15 2:15 AM
Burgomaster
Feb 27 15 2:16 AM
Feb 27 15 9:11 AM
Allen Champion wrote:I guess you'd have to assume Dracula took Renfield with him.
Feb 28 15 7:16 AM
DonM435 wrote:Allen Champion wrote:I guess you'd have to assume Dracula took Renfield with him.In one of those portable kennels of course.
Mar 10 15 12:42 AM
Mar 12 15 8:40 PM
Mar 12 15 8:46 PM
Mar 14 15 4:31 PM
bromstaker wrote:If one of you guys could find a scene from an old movie of a german shepherd running across a lawn and edit it into that scene where Harker moves to the window and spots the wolf, that would be really cool!
Mar 15 15 2:05 AM
Count Gamula wrote:Okay. I now have available to anyone interested in even more revisionist meddling, an mp4 of a reconstruction of the 1931 DRACULA that I’m calling the “extended shooting script edition”. Going a step further than Clark’s re-edit of the Browning version, this is a hybrid of the Browning version with clips from the Spanish version and still photos from deleted scenes. While I don’t think it necessarily represents what DRACULA should have been like in it’s final form, I do think that seeing this edit would give most people a fuller understanding of what the original vision for the movie was and how it was eventually reshaped, during its production and post-production, into the final version of DRACULA we have all known for so many years. I think some deleted footage definitely should have been include in the movie, while other scenes would not have served the movie well if they had remained as written. So here, for better or worse, is everything put back into DRACULA, from the original title card to Edward Van Sloan’s final curtain speech. You can email me for more information on how you can access the files. gammillk@gmail.com
Mar 15 15 10:05 AM
Mar 15 15 2:30 PM
Wich2 wrote:>what Browning originally intended, and of how the movie may have been shown if not for Carl Laemmle, Sr's last minute order to re-apply the scissors before the film was released< Clark, the work that both Kerry and you have done is admirable, and interesting. But with respect, that statement stands in fairly stark contrast to the in depth research on DRACULA 1931 present in Gary Don Rhodes current book on the subject. -Craig
Mar 15 15 3:29 PM
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