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Showing posts with label dracula. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dracula. Show all posts
Wednesday, 19 July 2017
Labels:
austen,
author,
beautrix potter,
countryside,
dracula,
england,
literature,
location,
shakespeare,
uk,
writer
Sunday, 17 January 2016
FILM 1458: HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA
TRIVIA: Dracula's wife and the
infant version of Mavis are voiced by Adam Sandler's wife and
daughter.
Miley Cyrus was cast as
Mavis, but she withdrew to focus on other projects, so she was replaced by Selena Gomez.
Labels:
adam sandler,
animation,
dracula,
family,
film,
film list,
frankenstein,
kids,
monster,
movie,
mummy,
werewolf
Wednesday, 19 March 2014
FILM 1121: NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE
TRIVIA: The scene where Nosferatu
arrives in the city required thousands of grey rats. Real grey rats were
unavailable and therefore white ones were painted grey and used instead.
As this movie was made long after
the copyright to Bram Stoker's
Dracula had expired, Werner Herzog
decided to restore the original names of the characters, while still following
the movie blueprint laid out by F.W. Murnau's
Nosferatu (1922).
Klaus Kinski had to spend
approximately four hours per day in make-up. Fresh latex ear pieces had to be
poured for each day of shooting because they were destroyed at removal. Kinski,
notorious for his violent daily temper-tantrums, had a very good relationship
to Japanese make-up artist Reiko Kruk
and was exceedingly patient and well-behaved during make-up.
One of five Dracula movies made and
released around 1979. The films are Dracula (1979), Nosferatu the Vampyre
(1979), Love at First Bite (1979),
Nocturna (1979) and Graf Dracula (beißt jetzt) in
Oberbayern (1979). Also from 1979 were the vampire movies Thirst (1979) and Salem's Lot (1979).
CAMEO: Werner Herzog: the
person who sticks his foot into the coffin and gets his toe bitten by a rat.
Tuesday, 13 November 2012
Film 842: Dracula
Trivia: When Universal purchased
the rights to the 1927 Broadway play, Lon
Chaney was considered for the title role. However, Chaney
died on August 26, 1930, and the role went to Bela Lugosi.
A Spanish-language version, Drácula, was filmed at
night on the same set at the same time, with Spanish-speaking actors.
Cinematographer Karl Freund achieved the
effect of Dracula's hypnotic stare by aiming two pencil-spot-lights into actor Bela Lugosi's eyes.
The Royal Albert Hall sequence
of the movie was filmed on the same stage where The Phantom of the Opera starring Lon Chaney had been filmed.
The large, expansive sets
built for the Transylvania castle and Carfax Abbey sequences remained standing
after filming was completed, and were used by Universal Pictures for many other
movies for over a decade.
Bela Lugosi was so desperate
to repeat his stage success and play the Count Dracula role for the film
version, that he agreed to a contract paying him $500 per week for a seven week
shooting schedule, an insultingly small amount even during the days of the
Depression.
The spider webs in Dracula's
castle were created by shooting rubber cement from a rotary gun.
Due to studio demands to cut
costs, the film was shot in sequence.
Similar to the prologue in Frankenstein, the original
release featured an epilogue with Edward
Van Sloan talking to the audience about what they have just
seen. This was removed for the 1936 re-release and is now assumed to be lost.
While it is rumored that Bela Lugosi, could not speak
English very well, and had to learn his lines phonetically, this is not true.
Lugosi was speaking English as well as he ever would by the time this was
filmed.
There was no real musical
soundtrack in the film because it was believed that, with sound being such a
recent innovation in films, the audience would not accept hearing music in a
scene if there was no explanation for it being there (e.g., the orchestra
playing off camera when Dracula meets Mina at the theatre).
Several famous elements often
associated with Dracula are not visible in this film. At no point does Dracula
display fangs. Also, the famous vampire bite mark on the neck is never shown
either (though it is visible in the Spanish version).
The opening music to this film
is from Act 2 of Swan Lake.
Bette Davis (who had a
contract at Universal at the time) was considered to play the part of Mina
Harker. However, Universal head Carl
Laemmle Jr. didn't think too highly of her sex appeal.
Apparently morose over the
loss of friend and collaborator Lon
Chaney and in the midst of severe alcoholism, the normally
meticulous Tod Browning was said to have
been sullen and unprofessional during the shoot. Among his actions were to
leave set, leaving cinematographer Karl
Freund to direct scenes. He would also recklessly tear pages
out of the script if he felt them to be redundant.
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