Beloved Count

Prince of Darkness...

The producer of the film,

Harry Alan Towers, wanted always

and proposed to me 10 times at least

to make the original "Dracula" book,

I said immediately, "Of course, yes," because

it's 10 times better

than any adaptation they made after, you know?

So I wanted to do it, too,

And Christopher liked the idea,

I think the original idea came from Christopher,

This was a Dracula indeed.

But Christopher didn't believe it could be done,

I told him, "Yes, let's do this "Dracula",

He was afraid,

because it's something in the novel

the problem is Dracula is very old at the beginning,

and then once he starts to get the blood

of Lucy and of everybody,

he starts to get younger and younger

and younger and stronger,

and Christopher was afraid about it,

"Do you think that people will understand

that every sequence I'm a little bit younger?"

I said, "Your hair will get black and..."

And finally we made it that way,

and I think that this film was very good,

It was a surprise, because

the adaptations of that period of "Dracula"

and everything of the kind based on gothic books

were very primitive adaptations,

Not this one,

I think this one is a real one,

I know that Coppola said his adaptation

is more faithful to "Dracula"...

it's not true,

The meaning of the film

is completely wrong

because Dracula can never be someone who

falls in love with normal people,

And if it happens that he wants a woman,

if he loves a woman,

is to bite her more

and to get more blood from her,

not in that romantic, traditional way,

As a matter of fact,

what Coppola did was a lot of funny things,

But the heart of the matter was

that Dracula falls in love with a normal woman,

and he doesn't want to bite her,

He wants to love her,

to hold her hand and

to walk around a beautiful park,

Dracula!

The very mention of the name

brings to mind things so evil,

So fantastic. So degrading.

you wonder if it isn't all a dream

A nightmare!

I like very much the original "Dracula" film,

but the Hammer "Dracula" films,

I don't like that much,

because I don't think the Hammer people

like Terence fisher took it seriously,

They made them because it was probably a nice business

and a nice thing to do,

but not having too much care about the stories

or the development of the subject,

I think from this group,

I like the first two films probably the most,

but I still preferred the Bela Lugosi film,

And Christopher himself,

I think he liked to play Dracula in the beginning,

In his mind

the book was very good,

and he would like to do the book,

but not the adaptations,

I was immediately for this,

I wanted to do it madly,

I spoke with Christopher,

and Christopher, too,

so we attacked the film in that way,

We shot in Barcelona mainly,

and then we did some scenes

about castles, and scenes like that, in France,

A kind of second unit thing,

But the film was shot in Barcelona,

Barcelona... and this is very funny to know now...

was in General Franco's period.

We had permission to shoot

in the royal castle

of the Castellan people,

We shot the dungeons

where now,

are the big celebrations of the General

with no problems,

so everything was really great,

And our sets were incredible,

beautiful, really, really gothic,

I don't mean gothic as in from the gothic novels,

which means the 19th century almost, 18th, 19th,

No, this was gothic from the 14th century,

Welcome to my house.

Count Dracula?

I am Dracula.

You know what happened...

in that moment...

there's that sequence,

which in the book the scene is fantastic,

is the first meeting between Dracula and Jonathan Harker

with the famous line,

"The children of the night, what beautiful music..."

He did it splendidly, wonderfully,

Listen to them.

The children of the night.

What music they make.

The producers cut out

a lot of the language on this scene,

because they said, "It's too long,

Nobody will understand it,"

But I said to Christopher,

two days before shooting,

"Listen, if you want,

please, let's do it complete,

And then if the producers want to cut something,

what can we do?

But let's try to get it 100 percent as it is in the book,"

And Christopher immediately

was delighted with the idea,

and we made the whole sequence,

The Dracula's have ever been.

the heart's blood, the brains,

the sword of our people.

And then the whole sequence stayed in the film,

nobody cut it out,

because I think it's the best sequence of Christopher,

It's the first time...

because between Christopher and me there was always

a kind of cold thing between us,

And it disappeared with this sequence, completely,

He was sincere with all his power,

and he had a lot of power as an actor,

But you know the problem with Christopher was

at that period, not now,

was that he wanted to be a Shakespearian actor,

He wanted to be Ralph Richardson

or Laurence Olivier,

and he wasn't Laurence Olivier,

And also he got his start in the cinema

through monsters,

through Dracula

and through Frankenstein,

and he wasn't very happy about it, because

he said, "I'm becoming a puppet,

A face you put make up on and it works,"

But in that moment, in that sequence,

a new world was opened between us,

between him and me,

We had to go further

and to go deeper into the character,

and he did it... wonderful, wonderful,

True.

The shadows of my past remain here.

We had some problems...

Always in cinema you have problems,

because of the dogs,

They're kind of wolf dogs...

because real wolves are very difficult,

But they were dogs for sure,

I was very much afraid that they'd

get a hand of Christopher or something,

So we used police dogs,

I think that they are quite frightening,

and of course, if you stop the film

and look at them it shows they are dogs, maybe wild dogs,

When we shot this sequence,

this wasn't in the script, of course,

but I thought it was a good idea,

I explained it to Harry and he agreed with me

that seemed to make like

the forces of nature are getting active,

I think it's nice to watch, this sequence,

Probably, I don't know,

Perhaps...

perhaps you could tell us more.

Klaus Kinski was very difficult,

He didn't want to appear in a "Dracula" picture,

So we ultimately did a screenplay

in which there was no mention of Dracula,

and he accepted the role,

and he was shooting in the studios,

and my wife, Maria, was in the scene with him,

and he had his hands around her neck,

he had to strangle her in this scene...

and he suddenly said to her,

"Maria, I think that bastard husband of yours

has brought me in a Dracula picture,"

I said, "Oh no, no, no, Klaus you're quite mistaken,"

His hands were around her neck at the time,

so we didn't have much alternative