#mercury theatre's dracula
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My Personal Ranking of Every Dracula Adaptation I've Watched/Listened To Since Dracula Daily
(Warning: spoilers under the cut)
So since I've started reading Dracula for the first time via Dracula Daily, I have over the past few months watched three movies and two podcast/audio plays of Dracula. The three films I've watched are the 1931 film starring Bela Logosi, the 1958 film starring Christopher Lee, and the 1979 film. The audio versions were the Mercury Theatre radio play starring Orson Welles, and the podcast Murray Mysteries by Knöve's Storytelling. These five Dracula adaptations had varying degrees of quality, and now having completely finished reading the original story I can now make a definite ranking of them based on book accuracy. Without further ado, let's sink our teeth into the content.
5. Dracula (1979)
Differences from the book
Jonathan's saga at Drac's castle is completely skipped over and the film begins with the Demeter crashing
Lucy and Mina's names are swapped in this film. So the girl who Dracula drains to death is named Mina and Lucy is Jonathan's fiancee. I looked it up later and apparently the director just thought that 'Lucy' was a better name for a leading lady. Really stupid reason if you ask me, but whatever.
This is a very heavy Dracmina adaptation (or Draclucy in this case? IDK the girl he falls for is definetly meant to be Mina but with Lucy's name)
Both Quincey and Arthur are absent in this version
Renfield is sane at the beginning of the film and is shown interacting with the other characters before he descends into madness and ends up at Seward's asylum later
Dracula is a prominent character throughout and the characters interact with him regularly. Obviously Lucy (actually Mina) interacts with him the most (ugh)
Van Helsing and Seward are Mina and Lucy's fathers. And Seward is about the same age as Van Helsing, which I've noticed is pretty common in these adaptations
We never actually see Transylvania in this film
Lucy (Mina) becomes a full vampire at the film's climax
Van Helsing dies in the final confrontation, and Jonathan kills Drac via exposure to sunlight.
What I Liked
Starting with the things I liked about this movie, because there's not many. I like that Van Helsing and Jack Seward are friends in this version. The other two films I've seen didn't have the bond between these two characters which was a core part of the original story. I liked that they shared a good portion of their scenes together and they do act like two men who have known each other for a long time. I'll give this movie credit for getting this one thing right.
The cinematography is exquisite. The muted colors, the way the inside of Dracula's residence at Carfax is framed on camera, the eerie gothic aesthetic throughout the film is masterfully done. But pretty visuals don't make up for poor characterization.
Mr. Swales is in this version. He's only in two scenes, but I was still pleasently surprised to see him in an adaptation.
They did the Lizard Fashion™ scene.
What I Disliked
They absolutely massacred Mina's character. She was so unbearably hateable throughout the film. The narrative made it clear that she didn't give a crap about Jonathan, and she practically threw herself on Dracula the minute she saw him. There was also the scene where she tells all the men (yes including Jonathan) that she hated them for coming between her and Dracula. Can you imagine book!Mina ever saying such a thing to her beloved husband who was willing to damn himself for her?!?! And DO NOT get me started on the Baptism of Blood scene! The part of the story that's supposed to be a horrifying metaphor for rape is instead played out as an act of passion between two lovers. There's also no ambiguity here, Dracula and Mina just straight up have sex. And Mina loved every minute of it. Imagine someone made a film about a rape victim and framed their traumatic experience as a passionate love scene! I almost went into a fit of rage at this scene, it disgusted me to my core!
Jonathan is really bland in this film. The writers clearly decided to set his characterization aside so they could focus more on the spooky vampire vibes and the affair his fiancee has with the vampire. They didn't make him a bad guy, but I didn't feel anything but pity for him in this film. The only scene where he shows any other emotion aside from 'concerned husband' was when he got understandably jealous when Mina was flirting with Dracula and he called her out on it. Other than that, he doesn't show anywhere near as much passion for Mina as he does in the book.
There's a scene where Drac lizard crawls into Lucy's window, and when she sees him, she smiles and shows her neck to him. I didn't like this, because it implied she was giving consent for him to drink her, which again frames the victim on having some blame on what happens to her.
Dracula still brutally kills Renfield like in the book, but I didn't really understand why? I might of missed something when watching, but Renfield doesn't do anything to try to protect Mina in this version. Drac just teleports into the asylum, snaps Renfield like a twig, refused to eleborate, then kidnaps Mina.
Did not like this movie. Terrible adaptation and so many characters, especially the women, got screwed over in favor of framing a stupid 'forbidden love' narrative.
Rating: 0/5
4. Dracula (1931)
Differences from the book
Still no Arthur or Quincey
Lucy is in the film, but she only has maybe two minutes of screen time, and her arc never got a conclusion, she just stays a vampire forever I guess. They could've left her out of the film completely and it wouldn't change anything.
Seward is yet again an old man in this film, and he's Mina's father. He also doesn't have much of a relationship with Van Helsing, they act more like business partners than friends.
Renfield takes Jonathan's place in the beginning of the film as the solicitor who goes to Dracula's castle. The narrative frames his encounter as the reason he went insane.
Mina has nothing to do in this movie but be a passive damsel in distress. About 70% of her dialogue is her screaming her husband's name.
Jonathan is simply called 'John' in this version. Seward is never adressed by his first name, so there's no confusion.
Like in the 1979 movie, the characters regularly interact with Dracula throughout the film, and frame Van Helsing as the one guy who knows he's a vampire and has to prove it to everyone else.
Renfield also has way more scenes in this film than he did in the book.
The final confrontation takes place at Carfax, Drac kidnaps Mina, and he's killed by Van Helsing and Jonathan.
This version is more based off the play from the 20's rather than the actual novel. And you can kinda tell by the way the story is paced, and how the characters come into the sets.
What I Liked
Bela Logosi as Dracula and Dwight Frye as Renfield are both by far the most entertaining aspects of this film. Even though I think they both got more screen time than they should, I have to say they both pulled off their characters spectacularly. Especually Frye as Renfield; the way he was able to portray a mild-mannered solicitor and then a madman is incredible.
There's no musical score through out the film, which really adds to the creepy atmosphere. Especially for the scenes at the begining at Dracula's castle where there isn't much dialogue.
The sets are really cool! Dracula's castle in Transylvania looks enormous and all kinds of creepy, just as it was described in the novel.
There's no Dracmina in this version, and Jonathan and Mina actually care about each other!
What I Disliked
The pacing was really wonky. As I mentioned before, Lucy's whole story arc was just glossed over, she was dead almost as soon as she was introduced. And then they brought up that a woman that looks like her is going around kidnapping children, and then that issue's just...never brought up again for the rest of the film. So is she still a vampire? Did she die after Drac was killed? And her death had very little impact on the main characters, even Mina who is supposed to be her friend. The whole ordeal with Renfield at the castle and the Demeter was also over with within the first five minutes of the movie. I get that they could only fit so much of the story in an hour and a half film, but come on!
All of Mina's intelligence and agency she had in the novel is completely thrown out the window, and she's replaced by a sexist archetype that was shown in every horror movie in the thirties. She spends the majority of the movie screaming and crying and being under Drac's control. This version of Mina is still better than the 1979 on though. At least this one loves Jonathan.
Jonathan is still pretty bland. His whole personality is just 'concerned husband', and that's about the extent of it. We don't get to see his arc from a gentle Englishman to vengeful gremlin on the name of his wife like the og story. All of his feminine aspects is taken away too, and he basically just acts like the generic male hero with no moments of self doubt. I do appreciate that they kept the dedication to his wife though.
Van Helsing and Seward don't act like friends. In fact most of their interactions involve Van Helsing proposing an idea that vampires could exist and then Seward tells him he's full of crap. This goes back and forth until Mina starts to turn.
Several of the plot points happen offscreen and then is brought up later through dialogue by the characters. Namely Dracula's assualt on Mina.
Renfield died like a bitch in this version. He was crying and begging Dracula to spare his life, unlike in the novel, when he grabbed Dracula in his mist form and wrecked him in order to protect Mina. He still helps the heroes in this version, but it doesn't feel as genuine when he chickens out the minute Dracula threatens him.
Overall, not a great adaptation, but a decent movie on its own. It would have worked better if it had been a series of films, so that way they could have all the story arcs with more proper pacing. They still did Lucy and Mina dirty, and there's no justice for Arthur and Quincey.
Rating: 2/5
3. Dracula (AKA Horror of Dracula) (1958)
Differences from the book
Still no Quincey! Seriously, what does Hollywood have against the cowboy?? No Renfield either.
Jonathan dies at the beginning at Dracula's castle.
There's only one vampire bride, and Jonathan kills her at the start.
Arthur and Lucy are siblings in this version.
Mina and Lucy have also swapped fiancee's, but unlike in the 1979 version, they still have the same roles they had in the book. So Mina is married to Arthur, but Lucy still gets drained/turned into a vampire.
Both Jonathan and Seward are minor characters in this movie. Jonathan dies at the castle at the beginning, and Seward only appears in the scenes where Lucy is ill. For the most part, Arthur fills in the roles of all four men who aren't Van Helsing. So if you thought Arthur didn't have enough to do in the og story, he does literally everything in this version. Except one thing, which I'll get to in a moment.
Two new characters were made for this movie. Arthur and Mina's maid, who basically takes the role of Mrs. Westenra from the book, and the maid's daughter who becomes a victim of vampire Lucy.
Van Helsing is the one to kill vampire Lucy rather than Arthur.
Arthur kills Dracula in a physical showdown.
What I Liked
This was the first movie adaptation I saw with Arthur in it, and I liked that he has more of a role here, even more so than he had in the book. I just wish we didn't have to sacrifice the other male characters sans Van Helsing for it.
The scene where Bloofer Lady Lucy lures the maid's daughter away to the graveyard was legitametly disturbing. The way she talked to the girl reminded me of how adult predators tend to talk to children to get them to follow them. Really scary stuff.
Dracula himself shows up sparingly in this movie! Finally a film adaptation that understood that a part of the horror of Dracula is that he only shows himself when he wants to.
The Baptism of Blood scene is actually portrayed as a traumatic moment for Mina. She's terrified and clearly doesn't want what the Count does to her.
Christopher Lee made a pretty awesome Dracula, with the few scenes he's in. He nailed the mystery and creep vibes the Count had in the og story.
What I Disliked
This movie had Van Helsing stake vampire!Lucy while Arthur stood there and covered his eyes. I didn't like the direction they took with this scene, because Arthur killing Lucy was a pivotal part of his character arc in the book. At the very least, movie!Arthur makes up for it a bit when he kills Dracula in the ending.
I think making Arthur and Lucy siblings was a weird choice. Especially since they kept the scene from the book where vampire!Lucy tries to seduce Arthur with a kiss before Van Helsing stops them!! So there's some icky incenst undertones there because of that. I really don't get why so many Dracula films insist on making the characters related when none of them were in the book.
The main cast felt pretty empty without Jonathan, Jack, and Quincey. Again, since Arthur fills up all the other men's roles it felt like the cast was lacking, with the focus mostly being on just the two men (Art and Van Helsing).
Mina didn't have much to do in this film, although I did appreciate her devotion to both Arthur and Lucy. It was clear that she cares about them both. And there's no Dracmina thank God! Aside from that, she just kinda played the role of 'emotional support.'
There's a scene where after Van Helsing places the garlic flowers all over Lucy's room, she throws a fit and smashes one of the vases. She then has Arthur's maid get rid of all the flowers and open her windows, the very things Van Helsing instructed not to do. I get that this was probably because Drac hypnotized her, but again the narrative is kinda blaming Lucy for what happens to her. Plus the maid was kinda an idiot to listen to her and not the doctor who instructed her to keep the flowers there.
They made the final confrontation with Drac a big showdown, unlike how it was in the book. On the one hand, its much more dramatic, but Arthur was the only one who was really involved, as in the book where all the main characters had to defeat the Count via teamwork.
This was one of the better Dracula films I've seen so far. This one was more focused on the human characters (even though they got rid of half the cast), and they allowed Drac to be a mysterious monster rather than a typical villain. Again, I really liked Christopher Lee's take on the Count. I just wish they had at least kept Jonathan for the rest of the film.
Rating: 3/5
2. Mercury Theatre's Dracula (1938)
Differences from the book
No Quincey (again!)
Arthur and Jack are combined into one character (literally named Arthur Seward).
It's implied that Seward is the one who put all the journal entries together rather than Mina.
Mina and Lucy don't interact in this version, and Mina isn't introduced until after Lucy's death.
No Renfield or vampire brides.
There is minimal Dracmina, but it's all on Drac's side, and Mina doesn't reciprocate at all (thank God!)
Mina kills Dracula in the end!
What I Liked
Orson Welles might just be my favorite Dracula so far! He has such an incredible voice that is both mesmerizing and spinechilling. His take on Dracula will keep you awake for several nights.
Despite being the shortest adaptation I've seen so far (it's under an hour long), they somehow managed to get all the important plot points of the story, and it doesn't feel rushed or poorly paced.
The main focus is on the human characters, and the found family aspects from the original story are still there! Seward is still hopelessly devoted to his old professor, and Jonathan and Mina are in love and bound to each other.
There was no victim blaming for the female characters!
Mina got to kill the Count! After all these terrible film versions where she's been reduced to a screaming damsel or a promiscuous bitch, Mina finally got the justice she deserves!! I'm so glad Welles and his team understood that Mina's role in defeating the Count was just as important as the men's! I just wish later adaptations knew this!
What I Disliked
Mina and Lucy's friendship was left out of the narrative. I know this was probably to cut time to fit the hour-long timeslot, but their friendship was so important to the story.
It felt too short?! Again, I know they only had an hour to broadcast the story, but I felt like it could've gone on another thirty minutes at least. It was really good though, so that hour went by too fast for me.
As good as this version was, it still really could've used some vampire-hunting cowboy action.
This radio play came out in 1938, and somehow it understood the female characters better than most modern Dracula adaptations. The voice acting is great, the sound design is great, and Orson Welles nailed it as Dracula!
Rating: 4/5
1. Knöve's Storytelling's Murray Mysteries (2021)
Differences from the book
The characters have canon queer identities.
Jonathan is ace.
Mina is bi.
Lucy is pan.
Seward is a lesbian.
Art is nonbinary.
Van Helsing is implied to be aroace.
Seward and Van Helsing have both been genderswapped, and their first names have been changed to Jane and Abigail respectfully.
Arthur strictly goes by 'Art' and uses they/them pronouns.
Renfield is only refered by the initial 'R.'
The story takes place in the modern day, and the characters use modern technology and slang. Most of the characters use audio recordings rather than written diary entries.
Drac vapes and owns a cat.
The story starts with Mina and Lucy at Whitby, and we the audience don't get to know about Jonathan's encounter in Transylvania until Mina does, when she listens to Jonathan's audio diary.
Holmward becomes canon by the end.
Jonathan and Mina's roles are swapped in the final act, so Jonathan is the one Drac violates and is slowly turning into a vampire, and Mina is the one who goes feral for her hubby.
Jonathan and Mina have a dog in the epilogue rather than a son.
Quincey gets to live!!!
What I Liked
This is the most faithful adaptation I've seen by far! All the important story beats are there, as are the character dynamics! This is the first adaptation I've seen that has all the main cast, and they work wonderfully together!
This one has Quincey!!! And he has the best lines in the whole show! Seriously, they took his himboness from the book and dialed it up to 11! It's magnificent! And they included the iconic bat shooting scene!
The idea to have Dracula as a podcast spread out through multiple episodes was a brilliant idea! They were able to pace the story the way it should, we get to spend time with every character and really get to know each of them, and the whole 'found footage' aspect this podcast has was a stroke of genius!
All the voice actors have amazing chemistry together. If you watch any of the BTS videos, you'll see that almost all of them are friends IRL, which adds to their performance here. I especially love Mina and Lucy's interactions, they really do feel like they've been best friends forever.
The team makes the decision to leave Jonathan out of the vampire hunt due to his trauma, unlike the og story where they left out Mina because she was a woman. This makes more sense considering the changed time period, and it's less misogyny BS we have to deal with. It also gave us unhinged vengeful Mina, which I greatly appreciate.
The scene where Jonathan tries to get Mina to promise she'll kill him if he turns is so heartwrenching! I swear, the VAs got me screaming crying and throwing up at how regretful, angry, desperate, and terrified they both sounded at the same time! God all the emotions were on point!
Dracula himself only appears for about three episodes in this series, which was all we really needed of him. Almost all the focus was on the human characters, which was as it should be.
What I Disliked
Dracula and Van Helsing don't have accents. I know this is supposed to be a more serious adaptation, and the VAs attempting to do accents that aren't natural to them may come off as unintentionally goofy, but still it didn't feel quite as authentic to the characters. Van Helsing was already pretty goofy enough as a character, it wouldn't have felt out of place if they had kept her Dutchness. Dracula also sounds like Just Some Guy, which is actually kinda hilarious after all these adaptations that try so hard to be over the top villains with foreign accents.
There are some areas in the story where I thought they were a little *too* faithful to the book. Namely the relationship between Seward and Renfield. Granted, it's not quite as bad as it was in the book, but it's still not great either.
This was definetly the best Dracula adaptation, and I don't know how anything else could top it! Maybe if we get a fully fledged TV series some day that's faithful to the book, but for now this podcast is just the best! Great writing! Great voice acting! The whole series is on YouTube, please go listen to it!
Rating: 5/5
#dracula daily#dracula#dracula adaptations#murray mysteries#mercury theatre's dracula#dracula 1979#dracula 1931#bela logosi#christopher lee#orson welles#horror of dracula#dracula 1958#movie review#podcast review#long post#jonathan harker#mina harker#lucy westenra#abraham van helsing#jack seward#arthur holmwood#quincey morris
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May 1941. Eight decades on, the deification of CITIZEN KANE as "the greatest movie of all time" is doing it no great favors, at least in terms of persuading people to actually watch it. The title suggests a ponderous art film that will feel like homework, which some of its fans try to counter by claiming that its moody deep-focus cinematography and Bernard Hermann score make it some kind of early film noir. Neither of those things is true: CITIZEN KANE is essentially an impish pastiche of the rise-and-fall-of-the-great-man variety of Hollywood biopics, dressed up with (and held together by) a series of shameless narrative contrivances, some memorably witty dialogue, and as many inventive cinematic gimmicks as Welles could squeeze into the two-hour running time. It is, like the radio shows Welles and his Mercury Theatre company had been doing for about two and a half years beforehand, aggressively middlebrow: As Welles himself later admitted, the story really isn't that deep, but it gives the impression of depth, just as some of the clever framing devices create the illusion of a bigger cast and larger budget.
If you take it seriously, KANE, like a lot of later Welles films, is fun for a while and becomes rather dour toward the end, but taking it seriously is a mistake, and the dourness is itself a contrivance. This is a story about an old man's tragic regrets … as imagined by a 25-year-old in a bald cap and padded suit who'd made his name on the legitimate stage, where no death scene is too final to prevent a star from taking his bows after the curtain falls. It's a game, like a cat losing its mind chasing down and vanquishing a new catnip mouse, and the finale, where the plot's central contrivance comes full circle, has that same tail-in-the-air sense of triumph.
#movies#citizen kane#orson welles#herman mankiewicz#bernard hermann#mercury theatre#if you haven't seen it it also helps if you first listen to#some of the surviving mercury theatre radio productions#not even a lot of them!#start with their dracula#or either one-hour production of the count of monte cristo#and of course there's war of the worlds#but if you also listen to a few others you'll get the concept
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Apparently Mercury Theatre On The Air did an adaptation of Dracula for radio in the 1930s.
Since I have somehow survived to be an adult in 2022 who DOES NOT KNOW THE ENDING (that’s not an invitation to spoil me!), I’m choosing not to listen to it right now, but I will absolutely do after Dracula Daily ends so I can report on whether it was done right.
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Get ready to sink your teeth into our latest episode of Zariya Hollow: A Horror Anthology! This month, we pay homage to the iconic radio drama, Dracula, inspired by Orson Welles and The Mercury Theatre. Join hosts Adeline Thornway and Reinhardt Hendrickson as they guide you through the chilling masterpiece that has haunted generations of horror aficionados. Don't miss this thrilling adaptation filled with eerie whispers, gripping performances, and spine-tingling suspense. Unearth the horrors of Dracula, now available on our Tumblr page. Listen, share, and let the darkness consume you! 🧛🕯️🌙 #ZariyaHollow #Dracula #HorrorAnthology #ClassicRadioDrama #OrsonWelles #MercuryTheatre
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On July 11, 1938, Orson Welles brought his Mercury Theatre to radio. His troupe lit up Broadway with its innovative productions, and CBS brought the acclaimed company to radio with an hour of airtime every week to present great works from the stage and literature. Welles acted in, directed, adapted scripts, and produced the series, and he was supported by stalwart radio players like Ray Collins, Edgar Barrier, Agnes Moorehead, and more - many of whom would appear in Welles’ Citizen Kane.
Today, the program is most famous (or infamous) for its presentation of The War of the Worlds, but the Mercury Theatre On the Air also presented such stories as Around the World in 80 Days, A Tale of Two Cities, and The Count of Monte Cristo.
But for my money, the best episode the series produced was its very first show - an engrossing adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Welles planned to open the show with Treasure Island, but when the Mercury Theatre obtained the radio rights to Dracula Welles and producer John Houseman pulled an all-nighter to get the novel adapted for the air at the eleventh hour. With less than three days before the live broadcast, they assembled a fantastic adaptation - one that rivals some of the finest films based on Stoker’s novel. Welles starred as both Arthur Seward and the titular count; Agnes Moorehead played Mina Harker, George Coulouris was Jonathan Harker, and Martin Gabel voiced Dr. Van Helsing.
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in which there are in-conveniences, Greg continues having a mental breakdown over a TV show, Irene has brain freez and sees Jesus, Mary, and Joesph, there are ghouls, Sebastian Moran, and most importantly: Freddie Mercury
“Look what’s here!” he said, pointing at something buried in the shadow below the stage. “Someone left a coffin here!”
Shivers ran down Sherlock’s spine. Oh God. This wasn’t looking good.
“Don’t fuck with me, Wilkes,” Kate gasped, running up to him and peering down. “No way! Do you think someone died here?”
“Hey, guys, who wants to see me get in?” Billy laughed, pacing down to where Sherlock, John, and Mike stood by the coffin. Sherlock tensed, silently pleading Billy not to do it. It wasn’t worth the risk to which he was oblivious to. Billy kicked off his shoes and made to step in, and Sherlock broke.
“Wait! Don’t do it!” he raised a hand, stopping him from proceeding further. Everyone froze, and Billy took a staggering step back.
“What, why?” Billy and Eddie asked, puzzled by Sherlock’s apprehension. Even John seemed perplexed, but remained silent. Instead, he observed the others to gauge their reactions. Sarah next to them even looked up from her phone.
“I…” Sherlock started, unsure of how to get the message across. “I don’t think it’s wise to play with the coffin.”
“Why? Do you seriously believe in vampires?” Wilkes bore into him, a wicked sort of smile on his mediocre looking face. “Dude, you’re an adult, grow up! It’s just tales! What kind of nonsense do they feed you in Britain?”
“I’ll graciously ignore your imbecilic remarks since your New York accent is apparently still salty over being a colony over two-hundred years later,” Sherlock fired off, “but you have no idea what lurks in the shadows. These things can very well exist, John can confirm that.”
“Uhm, Sherlock, I don’t think it’s a good idea to bring it up here,” John tugged at his shirt sleeve. Sherlock exhaled and turned his back to him and Mike, though John’s presence served as an anchor to steady his thoughts. Right, okay. It did sound incredulous.
“You Europeans are crazy,” Wilkes laughed, although his peers seemed more uncomfortable than happy to listen to his berating jokes.
“Fine,” Sherlock said, staring at Wilkes with determination. He heard John say his name, but he shut him out. “Fine. You may be right, as much as your speaking lowers the IQ of the whole theatre. We haven’t ruled out everything, after all. Best test it out!”
“Sherlock, what are you…”
“Oh, don’t worry, John! Just being my crazy British self. In the end, it’s just a coffin. A piece of wood. It’s not like Bram Stoker wrote an entire book as to why it is quite the bad idea to moonwalk into a vampire’s lair, right? Right! Dracula was intended to be helpful originally, did you know, Wilkes? I doubt it, what with your educational levels nearing Fahrenheit four-five-one.”
#Reichenbach Falls#Sherlock Holmes#john watson#bbc sherlock#sherlock and john#johnlock#irene adler#freddie mercury#sebastian moran#mary morstan#ghouls#ghouls Freddie Mercury#brain freeze#episode 5 chapter 4
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#wipitgood WIP amnesty: The fic I keep wrestling with but never make progress on, the “How Kent Parson Discovered Paganism” story. The poem quoted is real; it’s by Franco Buffoni.
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The year after my life fell apart and I made it big, I googled, "why is god cruel?"
Holy fuck, that got me so many stupid answers. I’d already tried to read When Bad Things Happen to Good People the summer before and given up a few pages in, and this was pretty much that in Google form. Everyone's so desperate to tell you that God doesn't really let bad things happen, they're not really bad, they're just secretly good things in disguise or something and it’s all going to work out in the end.
Fuck that.
But I found a poem.
From Mars cruel god of war
The desire to tie the corpse to the chariot
And drag it around each morning,
From Mercury the idea to put a stop to that
And buy the body back.
Because everything sooner or later becomes a musical
Or a collectible card or figurine
And that was... holy fuck. Nothing I’d ever read had made me feel like that.
In middle school we did a thing on Greek mythology. We actually got to do a field trip to the movie theatre to see Troy, and I actually got to go, which I basically never do. (Hockey.) It was awesome, and I remember our teacher reading us the opening lines of the Iliad, "Sing of the rage of Achilles."
I didn't really like school. I actually kind of hated it. That was before I moved to Quebec, and before the school actually realized that I needed things read aloud to me. Like, I'm not illiterate, but reading is hard and I'm slow at it and it makes my head hurt. But that was with the one teacher I really liked and I remember it. I remember being in school then and thinking, "I wish it was like this all the time."
And, well. We talked about the movie in class and how the war had really taken ten years and the movie wasn't totally accurate and Carrie said, "They totally didn't mention the part where Achilles and Patroclus were gay," and the teacher agreed with her. Like, Brad Pitt Achilles was gay, and in the movie they made them just cousins.
Everyone else was arguing about it because there was a girl in the story and that proved he couldn't be gay but I actually raised my hand and said, "Wouldn't he just be like, bisexual and cheating?" and I could tell Carrie was going to talk to me after class about it. We were really good friends last year and she thought she was maybe a lesbian. I wasn't actually sure if was was okay for me to be friends with her again, because the hockey season was still over, but it was still... I didn't actually know if it was okay anymore. My coach still thought I'd be going into the OHL and he still parked across from the school sometimes, so I just packed up my stuff and left without letting her catch my eye.
I looked it up later though, and she was literally right. They were totally... bisexual or something. So I knew that was the story. This guy killed Patroclus, and it made Achilles so angry that he killed the guy and dragged his body around behind his chariot, even though he shouldn't have done it. I'd imagined feeling that, back then, like: Finding someone really important to me, and having them die. How much I'd want to get revenge. What I'd do even if it made me a horrible person. I'd never really been in love, but I could imagine then.
So it was like I was being stripped, turned inside-out, by that poem.
Because everything sooner or later becomes a musical
Or a collectible card or figurine
Hitler or the Fierce Saladin
Dracula the Impaler
All stripped of any awareness of suffering:
There is no voice in stones
I'd been a trading card for years. Like, a literal trading card. Top NHL Prospects of 2010. People would ask me to sign them when I was in the Q. "An investment for my grandchildren for when you make it big."
People still asked me to sign stuff with Jack on it. Memorial Cup... memorial stuff. Or from World Juniors. Every time I did it I'd just kind of wonder: How the fuck do you ask something like that? Like, what makes you look at a picture of two people, one of whom nearly died and might never be okay again, and ask his buddy if he'll autograph it for you? Why the fuck would you ask, "Do you miss him?" How the fuck do I answer that? "Yeah, I guess?"
For a moment, reading that poem, I could imagine myself in a box like a Barbie doll, wired to a plastic card, with a plastic tray that kept me pinned down, in the right position in the display window. They always took so much patience, finding the invisible tape. I used to open my sister's for her because she got so impatient, she tried to wrench the whole package apart, so I took it away from her, felt for the edges of the tape, took the cardboard apart and untwisted the ties.
That night I looked up “Achilles” in the Apple audiobook store and bought a double volume of The Iliad and The Odyssey, and I fell asleep listening to the gods fighting over an apple.
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Have you ever heard the 1938 Orson Welles radio version of Dracula? (It was the first broadcast of the Mercury Theatre on the Air, best known for their War of the Worlds three months later -- you can find recordings of it online easily enough.) It's an interesting hybrid of the novel and the play, keeping more of the novel's epistolary structure, but with a new final twist.
I haven’t! But that sounds like exactly what I need in my life right now. I’m very intrigued by this new final twist.
Thank you so much for the recommendation!💜
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BOWIE: Stardust, Rayguns, & Moonage Daydreams Review: David Bowie's Memoirs Sparkle
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David Bowie is presented as a very human superhero alien in a cinematic graphic novel.
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BOWIE: Stardust, Rayguns, & Moonage Daydreams begins with a forward by Neil Gaiman called "If We Can Sparkle He May Land Tonight." It recounts the author's first contact with the third kind. David Bowie's songs were stories, he remembers, like the Gilbert and Sullivan ditties Gaiman preferred over rock and roll in his youth. He bonded with the rock star over the science fiction undercurrent in the music and image, and glorified him in his mind. Among his favorite memories is trekking to Victoria Station where the Thin White Duke arrived by special train before the 1975 Isolar Tour. Gaiman remembers the faux Bowies at the station, and the Station to Station albums scattered about to distract Bowie fans. The rest of the world was distracted by a blurred photograph which made it look like Bowie was giving a Nazi salute when it was enhanced. Such was the homo superior superpower of Bowie's myth.
Insight Comics' graphic novel is presented as a film directed by Mike Allred (Madman, Silver Surfer), who is also credited as co-screenwriter with Steve Horton (Satellite Falling). The illustrations by Mike and Laura Allred (Madman, iZombie) get her the credit as Technicolor cinematographer and the cinematic theme helps center the reading experience and nods to Bowie's acting exposure. The book points out Bowie trained in mime and appeared in a few films before his career took off like Major Tom in a tin can. He also had to turn down an appearance, Son of Dracula, where he would have played Harry Nilsson's son to Ringo Starr's Merlin, due to studio commitments. BOWIE: Stardust, Rayguns, & Moonage Daydreams opens at the Hamersmith Odeon on July 3, 1973, when Bowie said goodnight to his Ziggy Stardust persona, but the film crossfades to 1962 just before the actual announcement is made.
At the start, Bowie is presented as a tireless and curious artist, a veteran of bands The Konrads, The Mannish Boys and The King Bees, hanging with young London musicians who would make up the Small Faces and ultimately T Rex. BOWIE: Stardust, Rayguns, & Moonage Daydreams doubles as Bowie's memoir told against the rise and fall of his Ziggy Stardust persona, who comes across as a character conjured by the singer from the sky to bring his music to new life. Bowie is a superhero whose extraterrestrial exploits are made from the madness which runs in his family and the alchemy of the changing styles of rock and roll. His ears gobble up Velvet Underground, the Rolling Stones, the Who, and Pink Floyd, and his non-matching eyes catch the fiery fingers of Eric Clapton at night at the clubs. Forced to change his name to the strong sounding Bowie because David Jones is already singing for the Monkees, his first album debuts the same day as The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, but doesn't do quite as well.
read more: Why Mick Ronson is Essential to David Bowie's Legacy
Taking inspiration from Stanley Kubrick's science fiction masterwork 2001: A Space Odyssey and Roger Vadim's camp classic Barbarella, Bowie stars in the promotional film Love You Til Tuesday, which also features Hermione Farthingale, the girl with the mousy hair, in a segment. He meets Tony Visconti, the Brooklyn-born instrumentalist who would be a lifelong collaborator. The pair bond artistically over a viewing of Roman Polanski's film Knife in the Water. Bowie finds his Jeff Beck in Mick Ronson. The first glam rock performance happens on Feb. 22, 1970, when David Bowie appears as Spaceman, Vicsonti is Hypeman, Ronson is Gangster Man and John Cambridge is Cowboy Man in the band The Hype at the Roundhouse in London. Nobody applauds when the band leaves the stage, but Marc Bolan eats it up.
read more: Exploring David Bowie's Sci-Fi Fascination
If you're a rock fan, you know all the characters in the book. Bowie's career traversed the entire musical world in the short time it took for Ziggy Stardust to fall to earth. As a young artist, Bowie shops at the same stores as Freddy Mercury, shares stages with Peter Frampton and goodnaturedly ribs Marc Bolan, who will co-opt Tony Visconti, over tea. As he gains prominence he takes tea with Elton John, who Visconti passed on as a producer. There are some informational nuggets and gossip in the mix. The story throws in incidental tidbits like Bowie staying at the Warwick, same hotel the Beatles stayed at when they played Shea Stadium, when he was in New York to sign with RCA. Then adds details like how Iggy Pop got clean at the Warwick or how Bowie was taken straight to an Elvis Presley concert after one of his arrivals in the United States.
read more: The Man Who Fell to Earth: The Myopic Wonder of David Bowie's Earth Oddity
Prepare yourself before reading. "Roll up your sleeves and show us your arms," as a censored bit of promotion for The Man Who Sold The World advised. You might want a playlist of Bowie songs for backing music or for easy reference. Bowie's early liftoff was propelled by Barbra Streisand's cover of "Life on Mars" and Peter Noone of Herman's Hermit's rendition of "Oh You Pretty Things." The illustrations are fantastic, conjuring the look of classic iconography as well as rock stardom. Many individual drawings could be comic book covers, others album posters. The biography is colorful and cosmic, following Bowie's alter egos against the backdrop of iconic cultural influences like The Rocky Horror Picture Show, A Clockwork Orange, The Twilight Zone, even the Last Supper.
read more: David Bowie Was No Chameleon: A Sound and Vision Lookback
The novel illustrates Bowie's love of happy accidents like a phone ringing through a vocal track and a botched take which can be saved with the right 12 string guitar, in the formation of his sound. Bowie defied classification, mixing mime with psychedelic music, forming an image through the parts he plays and mixing the surreal with motion picture futurism. Bowie’s artistic and commercial trajectory is paralleled by the rise and fall of Ziggy Stardust. The Spiders from Mars disintegrates as Bowie wrestles with his alter ego. The internal conflict changes the world. The final separation between the character and the artist is sad, but necessary. He's saved the world, given us the Starman savior, grounded Major Tom and goes off for a few drinks, with ice.
BOWIE: Stardust, Rayguns, & Moonage Daydreams is a gift for David Bowie fans. It hit stands on Jan. 7, Bowie's 73rd birthday.
Culture Editor Tony Sokol cut his teeth on the wire services and also wrote and produced New York City's Vampyr Theatre and the rock opera AssassiNation: We Killed JFK. Read more of his work here or find him on Twitter @tsokol.
Read and download the Den of Geek Lost in Space Special Edition Magazine right here!
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Jan 7, 2020
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#dracula daily#dracula#mina harker#mina murray#polls#re: dracula#murray mysteries#mercury theatre dracula#dracula 1931#league of extraordinary gentlemen
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You guys, I have a dilemma. See, I really need to talk to someone about the Mercury Theater Dracula because it does a Thing that I have never encountered in another adaptation. But, I also really don’t want to spoil people for the Thing because encountering it unspoiled was really neat for me.
So I need you all to go play the video handily embedded above and then come back and talk to me about the Thing under the spoiler cut. Or, I guess, decide that you don’t care about spoilers and read past it anyway.
In this version, Mina kills Dracula.
And I don’t mean like in Nosferatu, where Ellen tricks the vampire into exposing himself to sunlight (and then dies herself). No, Mina rips the stake and the hammer out of her husband’s hand and stabs the motherfucking vampire to death. After which, she apparently just...goes back to England and lives happily ever after.
(Mina is played by Agnes Moorhead, I should not have been surprised that she turned out to be so hardcore.)
This is a thing I have simultaneously always needed and also not known that I needed until today. Mina killing Dracula herself with her own hands is the best thing to ever happen and I can’t believe that the only adaptation that contains this wonderful event is an hour-long radio play from 1938.
As far as I am concerned, this is officially how Dracula ends from now on.
(Also, this hour-long radio play is a surprisingly faithful adaptation that actually does the voyage of the Demeter and gives Dracula a super fun final monologue. It does cut Renfield entirely, but I suppose there is nothing perfect in this world.)
#denn die todten reiten schnell#monsters#dracula#mercury theatre#otr#please come talk to me about this radio play#i am not kidding
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The 1938 'War Of The Worlds' Alien Hysteria Was Fake News
On October 30, 1938, U.S. citizens were glued to their radios as they received dire news: Their country was being invaded. Not by Nazi zeppelins or Japan's secret Godzilla unit, but by Martians coming to destroy the world. However, this announcement didn't come from a journalist, but from Orson Welles, who was pulling a prank on millions by making them think the plot of a popular sci-fi book was actually happening. Or at least, that's what the newspapers wanted us to believe.
New York Daily NewsThis the closest a headline has ever gotten to actual yelling.
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According to news sources, Welles' performance of War Of The Worlds had "upwards of a million people, convinced, if only briefly, that the United States was being laid waste by alien invaders." Quite the prank, except that Welles was as shocked as everyone else. His show, The Mercury Theatre On The Air, had been around for months, adapting famous literary works as radio plays every week without anyone ever thinking they were real. When they premiered the show with Dracula, it didn't cause people to loot their local garlic-and-stakes emporiums, so what was so special about War Of The Worlds?
If anyone was to blame for tricking people into panicking, it was the newspapers. During the '30s, print media was in decline (can't imagine what that's like), with people preferring to get their news from their newfangled talkin' machines. So when they heard of Welles acting out a newsreader announcing the end of the world, they saw a chance to smear the radio as spreading fake news, proving that people should only trust print journalists -- which we now know is even dumber than believing aliens are invading.
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However, the embarrassing truth for Welles was that not enough Americans even listened to his show for it to cause pandemonium. As the alleged mass panic was kicking off, a radio ratings service was telephoning households to ask what they were listening to. Only 2 percent answered that they were listening to "the Orson Welles Program," and none said they couldn't talk because they were helping Pa load his shotgun to stop the aliens from probing Ma. The only thing the "scandal" wound up doing was make the 23-year-old Welles famous throughout the country as the world's most convincing storyteller, which must've really helped his burgeoning film career. So what we're trying to say is this: Thanks for Citizen Kane, fake news.
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#MercuryTheatre#Dracula#ClassicRadioDrama#OrsonWelles#BramStoker#VampireTale#Suspense#Horror#HistoricBroadcast#AudioDrama#WaroftheWorlds#OriginalBroadcast#SciFiDrama#HistoricRadio#1938#Panic#ClassicAdaptation
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The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) starring Richard Carlson, Julie Adams and Richard Denning
Clawing monster from a lost age strikes the Amazon’s forbidden depths!
Be a farmer or not, 1954 is a bumper crop—for horror movies. Imagine, in a single year, the many delicious, delectable, diabolical—and sometimes dumb—exploits added to the distorted world of this particular genre.
Let’s see . . . among the “lower,” properly forgettable films of that year: Killers from Space, Monster from the Ocean Floor, Gog and Godzilla. Deeper, deeper, at the murkiest bottom, the lower regions of nothingness: The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters, Devil Girl from Mars, Monsters from the Rue Rogue and The Snow Creature. But working quality upward, there’s light, and despite those who see a disreputable genre, some titles rise above that notoriety and become something more: The Mad Magician, Them! and The Naked Jungle.
And, in this year of 1954, what about The Creature from the Black Lagoon? Where does it stand in this bubbling cauldron of hell-broth? Some critics go so far as to endow the film with high praise indeed, that its creature, a resilient fish-man or gill-man—all monsters are “resilient,” just look at the armies which try to defeat them—belongs in the illustrious company of Dracula, the Frankenstein monster, the Wolf Man and the Mummy.
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Truly, Creature, along with its monster, is one of the most original horrors of the 1950s.
Whatever its status among the horror hierarchy, the idea for Creature comes from the fertile—or festered?—mind of William Alland. If the name is unfamiliar, it shouldn’t be: he’s Mr. Thompson the reporter, usually seen in silhouette, who is in search of the meaning of “Rosebud,” the dying word of the egotistical newspaper tycoon in Orson Welles’ famous 1940 movie Citizen Kane.
Much more than a minor actor, Alland is better known as a producer of horror films—It Came from Outer Space (1953), This Island Earth (1955), Tarantula (1955), The Deadly Mantis (1957) and, of course, the creature feature under discussion.
Alland, a member of Welles’ Mercury Theatre on the Air, with a hand in the 1938 radio scare of a Martian invasion, War of the Worlds, attended one particular dinner party given by Welles. Alland heard Mexican cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa (later an Oscar nominee for John Huston’s The Night of the Iguana, 1964) regale his audience with the legend of a half-fish, half-man creature that terrorized the Amazon River, emerging annually to possess a woman victim.
Alland had the idea, Maurice Zimm put it on paper and screenwriters Harry Essex and Arthur Ross converted it to screen. And Jack Arnold, no stranger to directing other “creature” films, including his masterpiece The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), directs Creature.
Composers Hans J. Salter, Henry Mancini and Herman Stein, along with some Universal stock footage—even a snip from 1941’s The Wolf Man—assemble an unexpectedly integrated score. Beware, however, of that three-note “creature theme” on the flutter-tongue trumpets. Even if it’s only a claw, the motif blares out each time the creature appears and so often the motif quickly becomes a boring nuisance long after any terror-striking effect has worn off. Still, the three notes could be the most memorable of its kind since Franz Waxman’s five-note “monster theme” in The Bride of Frankenstein (1935).
Aside from some scenes shot in a water tank, most of the underwater photography was filmed by a second unit, over 2,000 miles from Hollywood, in the sparkling clear waters of Wakulla Springs, about fourteen miles south of Tallahassee, Florida. One of the first films shot there was Tarzan’s New York Adventure (1938).
So it is to this spring, passing for the Upper Amazon, that a scientist, Dr. Carl Maia (Antonio Moreno, Captain from Castile, 1947, The Searchers, 1956), finds the fossilized remains of a scaly forearm and webbed claw-hand.
Not even three minutes into the film, the audience hears the three-note motif, fortissimo, and is teased, some might think prematurely, by, this time, a living claw-hand groping at the river bank. Carl has his back turned to this, of course.
Carl returns to civilization and recruits three companions for an expedition—ichthyologist Dr. David Reed (Richard Carlson, It Came from Outer Space, etc.), the financial backer of this expedition, Mark Williams (Richard Denning, the governor in TV’s Hawaii Five-O, 1968-80), and David’s girlfriend, Kay (Julie Adams, The Private War of Major Benson, 1955), the requisite “female in danger”—the woman the creature is after in any horror film.
With tag-along scientist Dr. Thompson (Whit Bissell, Hud, 1963, Seven Days in May, 1964) aboard, they arrive by river trawler at Carl’s camp, only to find two of his aids dead. The jovial captain of the “Rita” is Lucas (Nestor Paiva, Humoresque, 1946, Tarantula).
After finding no more fossils, David believes that any possible remains might have been washed down the river thousands of years ago, and in traveling further down the waterway they discover the black lagoon with its primeval forest rising from water’s edge.
Having noticed Kay, the creature has followed the trawler to the lagoon, establishing the beauty-and-the-beast premise, specifically King Kong (1933), the writers admitted source of their story. After David and Mark have dived for rocks in the lagoon, Kay goes swimming and the fish-man, somehow unnoticed, swims along beneath and around her.
The creature later climbs aboard the “Rita” and kills some of Lucas’ crew before its capture and confinement in a bamboo cage. When the scaly prisoner escapes, he mauls Thompson. Kay tosses a lantern and, in flames, the creature jumps overboard.
David wants to end the expedition, but Mark is bent on capturing, or killing, the fish-man. There are more struggles. The “Rita” is locked in the lagoon by some loose logs moved by the creature and Mark is killed in an underwater fight with the aquatic adversary.
When Kay is kidnapped to a grotto by the fish-man, David, Carl and Lucas rescue her, but not before shooting the creature, which retreats into the lagoon. The last shot of the film is of its body sinking limply to the bottom of the lagoon.
The Creature from the Black Lagoon, which seems, at least on first viewing, so unified creatively, contains at least six “doubles,” necessitated by the second unit work in distant Florida. The credited “surface” director might be Jack Arnold, but for the underwater scenes it is James C. Havens. Likewise, the Hollywood cinematographer, William E. Snyder, is replaced in Florida by Scotty Westbourne, using a then innovative underwater camera. This was about the same time as Beneath the 12-Mile Reef (1953) and 20,000 Leagues under the Sea (1954), films known, at the time, for their spectacular underwater photography.
In Hollywood, lead actress Julie Adams is making her signature movie, while beneath the water, exhibiting acrobatic stunts and somersaults, is Ginger Stanley, then a performer at Florida’s Silver Springs tourist attraction. In the swimming sequence between “Adams” (Stanley) and the fish-man, some critics have seen a highly erotic ballet, a “love dance,” intimations of sexual intercourse, albeit from a distance.
Aside from the water tank shots, actors Carlson and Denning are doubled in the lagoon sequences by two local college students hired for the occasion. On the boat and getting in and out of the water, Carlson wears two air tanks, Denning only one, a distinction replicated by the stand-ins beneath the surface.
Even the fish-man leads two lives. Stalking on the surface, climbing aboard the trawler, being set on fire or shot at, Ben Chapman is the creature; under the water it’s Ricou Browning, who, as a result of this filming experience, became a director, writer, producer and underwater cinematographer.
Milicent Patrick, supposedly the first woman animator at the Walt Disney Studios, designed the creature’s outfit, though Bud Westmore took unfair credit, as is so often the case with him.
With the fish-man only presumably dead in the end, the writers and producer left room for—that’s right!—a sequel, and not one but two. Neither The Revenge of the Creature (1954) nor The Creature Walks Among Us (1956) is as good as the original, and although still another remake is rumored, so far the nearest to one is The Shape of Water (2017), which its director, Guillermo del Toro, said was inspired by the 1954 film.
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