First, it was a book in 1972 by Raymond McNally and Radu Florescu. My copy is from the 1994 re-release because hey!, Edward Gorey cover.
This was an historical approach to the Dracula legend from an American acacdemic and, remarkably, a Roumanian scholar. Remember, 1972 was still Cold War era, but Romania was beginning to be its own country in the shadow of Russia. In a search for national identity, Romania chose their national hero, the defender of the country against the Turks during the fourteen hundreds, Vlad Tepes, the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula. This books examines the historical figure and considers him relative to the fictional character.
The book inspired a movie in 1975, also called In Search of Dracula.
Brilliantly, the producers had a masterstroke of casting for their narrator/presenter: Dracula himself, Christopher Lee. Lee had played the Count in eight movies at that point, and with his magnetic presence and hypnotic, deep voice, he was the man.
Between the two pieces, ideas that we take of granted, Vlad the Impaler was Dracula, his war with the Turks, pieces that made their way into Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula, became part of the legend.
Of course, the story eventually made it's way to television, in a 1977 episode of In Search Of... called, naturally enough In Search of Dracula.
It's almost as good as a truncated version of the movie, with a very special narrator of it own: Leonard Nimoy, the former Mister Spock. Of course, at under half an hour, it's a pretty much watered down version, but hey, Mister Spock and Dracula!
Viewable here:
No comments:
Post a Comment