The Dracula Business

This fabulously bonkers documentary was made in 1974 by the BBC for their "Tuesday Documentary' strand and follows the entertainingly pompous Daniel Farson, the great nephew of Bram Stoker, as he takes us on a rambling examination of the impact of his great uncle's creation.

Farson indulges in a roaming exploration of the various ways Stoker's story has been monetised from Dracula ice lollies and Hammer Studios via naked bisexual Vampyres and school teachers on Romanian package tours through Denholm Elliot and homicidal divorcee fantasists to two bonkers exorcising priests and a wonderfully straight talking Benedictine monk.

With the exception of the lolly buying schoolkids and the Highgate Cemetery keeper most everyone here is fantastically and almost comedically posh and the documentary wanders completely off the point about three quarters of the way through and never finds it's way back but it's great fun and a real time capsule brimming with unlikely treasure like the footage of the London bookshop with it's spinners full of paperback treasures.

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Christopher Lee - In Search of Dracula (1975 documentary)

This is a 1975 documentary narrated by Lee about the real life inspiration for Dracula, Vlad Tepez, along with the book, it's author and some of the films.  It's very much of it's time so don't expect the now commonplace cavalcade of expert talking heads just rolling images and a voiceover.  It's an entertaining and interesting overview, competently produced but entirely made by Lee's delivery of the script.

Even if the documentary doesn't appeal it's worth skipping to the 48 minute mark to catch the magnificently mustachioed narrator's closing remarks.

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Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

Dracula (1958)

Today, 26 May 2015, marks what would have been the 102nd birthday of the late great Peter Cushing and what better way to mark the occasion than a viewing of what is arguably not only his finest hour (and 12 minutes) but also that of his friend and co-star Christopher Lee as well.

So today I wish to share with you the 1958 Hammer production of Dracula.

Directed by Hammer's legendary director Terence Fisher (who would, between 1958 and 1960, direct Cushing through roles as Van Helsing, Victor Frankenstein, Sherlock Holmes and The Sheriff of Nottingham) and starring Cushing and Lee in their career defining roles as Van Helsing and the Count, future Bat-butler Michael Gough, and Catweazle himself Geoffrey Bayldon.


It's an action movie interpretation of the novel with Lee's brooding, stately and utterly cold vampire counterpointed by Cushing's vibrant and dashing action hero leaping on tables, swinging from curtains and finally dispatching his foe in one of the most recognisable of all Hammer scenes.

I know you're all going to enjoy this one.  If you're anything like me you've seen it many, many times already but there's always time for another viewing of an absolute classic.


Dracula 1958 by Alice-Bauer