The new Dark Sky DVD of Jess Franco's COUNT DRACULA has a marvelous supplement. It's a 90 minute recording of Christopher Lee performing Bram Stoker's DRACULA in which he employs a variety of accents to enact the characters.

This was originally a 1960's double LP, on the short-lived Stamford Records label. I actually had a copy of it back then. The only way to purchase the album was to mail order it from Monster Mania magazine, I believe (both the magazine and the LP were Russ Jones productions, I think). The album cost $7.98, and, unlike my unfilled orders from Castle of Frankenstein magazine, actually arrived, albeit two months after I sent for it.

The vinyl was pretty poor quality, with tape hiss and other artifacts, but Lee's performance of the material was remarkable. It's great to have that recording again, thanks to the Dark Sky disc, and it sounds better than it ever did in the sixties. This has to be my favorite DVD supplement of the year, so far.

WTF?! My copy has Lee reading from VALLEY OF THE DOLLS.

Quite a tempting extra. I wasn't really interested in revisiting the Franco film, but I might pick it up just for the recording. What is shown onscreen during the recording? Is it a single image or a slideshow of images?

It's a slideshow of images. I haven't gone through all of the Lee reading yet, but sampled bits and pieces of it. He really seems into it. Definitely a nice extra.

I saw this on TV probably 20 or more years ago. Watching it again, I liked a lot of it and found it well-intentioned, but there is some seriously sloppy filmmaking going on here (that huge styrofoam rock bouncing off the horse is classic, and Dracula's demise is hysterically cheesy). Lee, Kinski (or "Klaus Kinsky" according to the Italian credits, which also label his character "Reinfierd"), and Lom keep it going, but Franco really could've used some more money.

Still, for some reason, despite all of the problems (and there are many), it still works for me. Lee is great, especially in that long monologue where he's talking directly into the camera. Top-notch acting, there.

Who dubbed Franco? It was amusing hearing that almost Liverpudlian accent coming out of him. And the person dubbing Jack Taylor is VERY familiar, but I can't place it.

I didn't pay too much attention to Taylor's dubbing in this one but he has dubbed himself in other films. He's also dubbed Paul Naschy's voice in a couple films.

Too bad the Dark Sky DVD is cut, though. It's missing the brief but important scene where the mother beats on the door of the castle crying for her child.
The scene is intact on my old NTA/Republic VHS tape and the Spanish Divisa DVD.

A couple of other snippets are also reportedly missing also.

According to other boards, the mother is played by Teresa Gimpera who is uncredited in even the Spanish version. She seems to have had an interesting genre career, from NIGHT OF THE DEVILS and CRYPT OF THE LIVING DEAD to the artier SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE. She's also credited in Peter Collinson's TEN LITTLE INDIANS but doesn't seem to appear.

I had a feeling the Dark Sky release was somewhat cobbled together: it has the French title (LES NUITS DES DRACULA), but then the credits switch to Italian ("con la participazione de Herbert Lom"). Now this "crying woman" sequence is completely MIA? I'm glad I picked it up, but at the same time, why isn't this scene in there? Looks like yet another example of a Franco film exisiting in twelve different versions, none of them definitive.

There's an informative, if rather longish thread on this over at the Franco Lounge on the Latarnia board.

I didn't recall the scene involving the ghostly appearances of Dracula's brides from when I saw this years ago. It is one of the more effective moments in the Dark Sky release.


COUNT DRACULA at the Franco Lounge

Amazingly enough I tripped over this LP or possibly a re-print today. John Bernard score, Christopher Lee reading Dracula, etc...

Terry, I wonder if you might be thinking of another album. The music on the Stamford Records set sounded like library music, although not the same old cues that date back to the SUPERMAN TV series. I do think that Lee's voice appears on at least one other album, possibly with James Bernard music. On the Stamford set, the performance runs 90 minutes, and was spread over four sides.

Incidently, those SUPERMAN music cues popped up everywhere. I even heard some of them on THE TELL-TALE HEART, which was one of the albums in the early sixties "Tale Spinners For Children" series.

Could be. The label was Step2 (or something similar) I think. I don't remember the title precisely either, except for Hammer, Christopher Lee and Dracula in large letter.

Okay, I found a cd at Amazon, that's called 'Hammer Presents Dracula with Christopher Lee'. Might be the same as the LP I found, name seems right, at least.

Ah, here we go, this is definitely what I saw:

HAMMER PRESENTS DRACULA - LP

This must be the other LP your refering to, it's not Stamford (or Step2). Of the two it sounds like this one might be the better.

Part of that album appears on Silver Screen's THE HORROR OF DRACULA cd. The small print (I'm reading it with a magnifying glass) copyrights it as:
1974 Hammer City Records, Ltd
Issued under Licence from EMI Records, Ltd
Originally available on EMI Studio 2 TWOA 5001

It runs 18 1/2 minutes and concerns a young couple who wander into Dracula's castle. It sounds like a complete story although Dracula gets killed, leaving one to wonder what's on the rest of the original album.

Side 2 of the EMI album is music from FEAR IN THE NIGHT, SHE, THE VAMPIRE LOVERS and DR JEKYLL & SISTER HYDE, which Silva used on one of their other CDs.

Silva did some music re-edits to the story for their "Horror of Dracula" CD, adding music from one of the previous Hammer CDs. I think there might be some additional edits, but can't say for sure, as its been a while since I've listened to it. I do prefer the album version, however.

I've also posted this on the Latarnia thread:

It looks like both Italian and Spanish prints credit FotoFilm Madrid for processing but that doesn't mean that the two versions might have been timed differently after the camera negative was developed.

While the English version credits Peter Welbeck (aka Harry Allan Towers) for the script, the Italian credits Erik Krohenke with the story and Augusto Finocchi with the screenplay. The Spanish version credits "argumento" to Stoker and "guion" to Franco and Finocchi (although Franco's credit may actually have more to do with dialogue for the Spanish version since Towers probably wrote the script). Finocchi might have done the Italian dialogue but the imdb credits him with just the script and credits two other people with dialogue for the Italian version.

Manuel Merino is credited with photography on the English and Spanish version but shares the credit with Luciano Trasatti who has several Italian credits for the sixties and seventies and is credited by the imdb as the cinematographer for BLOODY PIT OF HORROR (as John Collin) but I'm thinking he's there for quota purposes or he shot the Italian interiors (he might be to blame for the camera shadows in Renfield's cell instead of Merino).

EDIT: According to another Latarnia poster, the Dark Sky interview (which I haven't watched yet) Franco states the sets for Kinski's asylum scenes were constructed and shot in Italy.

The Italian version credits Idelmo Simonelli as camera operator (once again, he's a real camera operator) but the Spanish print credits Javier Perez Zofio (NIGHT OF THE ASSASSINS, KILLER BARBYS) as "segundo operador" which may correspond to a camera operator credit when the main cinematographer is credited as "operador jefe" (though Merino gets the "director de fotografia" credit in the Spanish print).

Director of production (production manager) on the Spanish print is Jose Climent who was the cinematographer on Franco's VIRGIN AMONG THE LIVING DEAD, DRACULA PRISONER OF FRANKENSTEIN, NIGHTMARES COME AT NIGHT and a few other films around that time. A "J. Climent Martin" is one of the directors of production on the Italian print.

Enrico Fontana (assistant camera on ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS, SUSPIRIA, BLACK SABBATH, etc) is credited as assistant camera on the Italian print whereas Alberto Prous gets that credit in the Spanish verison. Prous also served as "Segundo operador" on DRACULA PRISONER OF FRANKENSTEIN and LOVERS OF DEVIL'S ISLAND).

Karl Schneider gets credit for sets on both the Italian and Spanish versions (Schneider has credits in German films and this was a Spanish-Italian-German co-production). The imdb credits Jack Taylor with set decoration (as George O. Brown) which is believable given his working relationship with Franco and that he is an artist as well as an actor. Emilio Zago is credited with "arredatore" (which I assume is set decoration given its translation in other films) on the Italian prints.

As mentioned before Mattei is credited with editing on both the ITalian and Spanish versions and Nicholas Wentworth (DORIAN GRAY, the initial cut of VENUS IN FURS) is credited on the English prints.

There are more differences. Some are very likely quota credits but some of these people who are not Franco regulars may indeed have worked on this film but only get credit for the version sold in their own country, especially if the film was indeed shot in multiple countries since it was a coproduction. The Spanish version says exteriors were shot at Barcelona, Alicante, and Munich but I'm sure I read somewhere that some interiors were shot in Italy.

Anyone have any idea where the castle is? It looks like the same one (the exterior and the crypt) used in DRACULA PRISONER OF FRANKENSTEIN.