Casey62 wrote:
On pages 181 and 182, Gary explains that budgetery restrictions prevented the churchyard and its gate from being built. The gate we see when the bobby bicycles by and Van Helsing and Harker see Renfield is from the existing Carfax Abbey set, which Browning also had to improvise to suggest Lucy is stalking children near the abbey, instead of the churchyard. This is why we see Lucy walking through a wooded area with no tombstones or vault in sight - no such set was ever built.
I think Gary's assumes that Harker and Van Helsing are at Carfax Abbey when they see Renfield and then he works backwards from that belief concluding that the existing Carfax Abbey gate then did double duty as the as the cemetery gate in the Spanish version. He also assumes the crying child is found by Carfax Abbey because the same gate is used in that scene when it could just as easily be the cemetery (which really makes more sense since that is where Lucy "lives" and the cemetery is mentioned in that part of the script). But as I said, there was no Carfax Abbey gate in the script. The cemetery gate is where the the men see Renfield.

Does Gary have some paperwork that actually states that the cemetery gate was not built? If so, I'll do a fast flip-flop. But they obviously DID build a gate and it sure looks like a cemetery gate. No matter what the gate was built for, why wouldn't they use it as the cemetery gate for the crucial staking scene instead of as a very unimportant (non-existent?) gate to Carfax Abbey? While not proof, I think the scene in the Spanish version combined with the quick shot of Harker and Van Helsing by the gate in the Browning version (just as they are in the script), has to carry some weight for the argument that the gate shown in the Browning version is supposed to be at the cemetery.


Kerry Gammill
www.monsterkid.com