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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?
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