wm lopez

They did another change to this movie.
When the movie appeared on t.v. and at the movie theaters it was full color.
Then when it came out on laserdisc and then on dvd it had a washed out color sort of black & gray look to it.
So I just watched the new released dvd and they went and changed it to that greenish look that we see in todays movies and commercials. Gone is the black & gray look that was on the laserdisc.
I don't know if I like it, but it makes it almost feel like this movie came out today because of the look.
At times the full color will appear like in daylight scenes.
Anybody else seen the new dvd?

Zodiac_Speaking

I read an article about how the director finally changed the original look to what you see now. I forget why but I'll go get that article and paraphrase it.

Doug Schiller

Even with Dracula's disco haircut?

buckee1

Just got my Amazon order and it's in there. In looking at the cover, this new color scheme explains why his cloak and the clouds are green. Hopefully, it will be an improvement over the two previous editions.

buckee1

I'm about 20 minutes into the commentary and he has yet to address the reason for bleeding the print dry of color for its original release. I have to admit though, I really like the "greenish" hue found in the current release. The colors that remain are made more bright and the picture actually looks good as well.

The making of segment is actually quite interesting. It runs about 40 minutes and sheds considerable light on Langella's concepts on who "his" Dracula was, as well as providing insights from both the Director and Producer.

In all, I'd have to say this edition is head and shoulders above the original DVD release. Well worth the $13 I paid for it. My only regret is that they did not remix the audio for a 5.1 presentation. John Williams' score is amazing and I would have loved to have heard it through that platform.

Zodiac_Speaking

"One of the most artistic elemnts of the film is in the muted color pallet used by production designer Murton and accentuated by Taylor's photography. Badham admired the Broadway set design which was entirely in black, white, and grey, leaving only the flesh tones in color as well as the blood. He (director) sought to create a look which had the essence of monochrome, while using color film stock, which had been done in Oliver! and Moby Dick. Unfortunately, by 1979 the 3-strip Technicolor process was no longer avaible except in China, so Badham settled for a compromise. When the film was released on laserdisc in mid-'90s, the director was finally given the chance to bring his original wanted look."
That was from SFX's Vampire Special about 2 yrs. old. Hopefully, a DVDTalk review will shed some light onto this.

baracine

I posted this today on another thread about Coppola's "Bram Stoker's Dracula":

Last night, I cold-bought and watched Dracula (1979), the John Badham film with Laurence Olivier (Van Helsing), Frank Langella (Dracula) and Kate Nelligan (Lucy). I had never seen it. It's based on the horrid play* (read: the one that never leaves England or the drawing-room of the Seward household) that inspired the 1931 film, which had just been revived on Broadway with great success in stark black-and-white (and red!) sets by Edward Gorey and with the very seductive Langella in the title role.

The film tried to capitalize on Langella's gound-breaking ultra-romantic hormone-swirling interpretation but failed by mixing it with very disparate elements from Hammer-style gore to cringe-inducing laser-disco-light special effects in the pivotal love-making scene**.

It's a horrible hodge-podge but not without merit or atmospherics, the best of which are attributable to John Williams' perfect score. The deliberately washed-out photography and involved art direction are "interesting" but they don't go far enough to save the whole and they are a poor substitute for the Edward Gorey stage set that inspired the whole enterprise.

In typical Hollywood fashion, the script inverts the parts of Lucy (Seward) and Mina (!) and makes the latter the first victim and the daughter of Van Helsing (!!). Lucy is Harker's fiancée (!!!). Renfield is a failed real estate agent who has become a drunken, foul-mouthed labourer with bad teeth (!!!!). "Why?" is anybody's guest. It is set circa 1905 (judging by the early cars) whereas the novel is set in the late 90's and the play in the late twenties. Universal went with this play because it already owned the rights and they could save a few bucks.

Having said this, it's a definite influence on Coppola's film, which wouldn't have been possible without it: scenes like a "realistic" blood transfusion, the reciprocal blood-drinking between Dracula and Lucy (read: Mina in the book), Dracula crawling up and down buildings, killing Renfield in order to give Lucy (uh, Mina) a chance to escape and the general sexual and romantic overtones are key. It's a necessary link in the long evolution leading to Coppola's masterpiece. Of course, where Badham failed miserably (including at the box office), Coppola succeeded admirably, because of his unifying vision.

One more reason to like Coppola's film.

* The merciless lampooning of this very bad, but very successful, play is what makes Mel Brooks' film Dracula: Dead and Loving It so gosh-darned funny for Draculaphiles!
** A long time before I ever saw the film, I used to fantasize about the look of the film while listening to John Williams' score, especially from this scene. The music had me "seeing things" but they weren't a vision of a couple doing the horizontal hustle on a New Jersey disco floor...

---end---

I should add: I was pleased with the very high bitrate of this new DVD, almost 10 everytime I checked it. There is a possibility I will eventually "bond" with this film but it didn't happen so far. Like I said, the colour treatment is "interesting" but it can't compare with the global vision of Edward Gorey's black and white sets for the Broadway play or with Coppola's "antiqued" look.