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Does anybody know if there are any extras on this - besides the Spanish version?
I know the Frankenstein set has a few docs which aren't mentioned on the box.

Do you mean the 75th anniversary set, from the Universal Legacy series? If so, then yes, there are several bonus features. On Disc #2 there's a documentary on the studio's horror movies that's quite good. (It runs about an hour and a half, from what I recall, and covers a lot of ground.) On the first disc there are two shorter documentaries, one on the making of Dracula and the other on Bela Lugosi. It's been a couple of years since I watched them but I think they were pretty good. With the movie itself they offer two commentary tracks, one by David Skal which is very comprehensive and interesting, and one by Steve Haberman, which I haven't seen -- or heard, rather. And they also offer the film with the Philip Glass score as background music, but I haven't experienced that yet, either.

So sorry. I forgot to add the link to the set in question

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000 ... d_i=468294" target="_blank

" Disc #2 there's a documentary on the studio's horror movies that's quite good."


The documentary is UNIVERSAL HORROR from Kevin Brownlow's Photoplay productions,
with narration by Kenneth Branagh.

Judging by the Amazon.UK link, this looks to be the same as the U.S. "Dracula Legacy Collection" from 2004. Except that the U.K. set has three discs instead of two (the first disc in the U.S. set has the original film plus the bonus features - the second disc was a two-sided "flipper" with the four other films - 2 on each side).

The original U.S. set doesn't have the Brownlow "Universal Horror" documentary, and I would doubt this UK set includes it either.

Extras on the first disc include a good commentary by David Skal, a pretty good half-hour documentary narrated by Carla Laemmle, the option to watch the original film with the newly-commissioned (and unnecessary) Philip Glass music score, and some poster art and trailers. Plus a short intro by the man unfortunately responsible for "Van Helsing". No extras for the other four films aside from a brief intro by Lupita Tovar for the (pretty damned good) Spanish version shot at the same time as the 1931 original.

It's a good way to pick up all the films at a very cheap price. However - the original U.S. releases of these Universal Legacy Collection sets had some problems. The two-sided discs sometimes had playback problems and the package design allowed the discs to fall off the spindles in shipping - a few of mine were badly scratched due to this.

Hope this helps. Again, my comments only refer to the original 2004 U.S. release of the set.


Bob Meyer

Thanks, folks.
I already have the Brannagh/Brownlow documentary on VHS.
I reckon I'll buy this anyway just for the Spanish version which I believe is well worth seeing.

I was surprised to find that I liked the Spanish version better than the English one.
Spiritus

Spiritus wrote:I was surprised to find that I liked the Spanish version better than the English one.
Spiritus

It's quite good, and I like Pablo Alvarez Rubio's version of Renfield very much.

It has been my experience in visiting European and American forums in recent years that, in most of the cases, the American fans seem to prefer the Tod Browning version, probably because Lugosi is such an icon in their country. To the opposite, most of Europeans think that the George Melford version is superior on almost every point (it's also my opinion). Both movies suffer from being adapted from the stage play rather than the Bram Stoker novel, but the mise-en-scene in the Spanish-language version is so superior that - although it runs 30mns longer - it's much more fluid than the US version.

I think that if you could put Lugosi into the Spanish version (and maybe Van Sloan) it would be perfect. Villarias is not bad in the part but I just don't think he's good enough

Maybe this is a pig-ignorant question amongst such luminaries in the field as your good selves but...is the Spanish version subtitled on this set?

Yes, the Spanish version has English subtitles.

I just watched it last week. The Spanish version is fine, and the ladies are, uh, much more enticingly dressed than in the prim American version. But the guy playing Dracula is awful.

Jim

Rather than calling him "awful", I think that Carlos Villarias is a cross between Lugosi and Christopher Lee, much more violent and modern than Lugosi (just watch the mirror scene between Van Helsing and Dracula, the Hispanic one is far more dynamic and Dracula is almost bestial in this version). Some of Villarias's facial expressions can seem comical, but no more than some of Chris Lee's in "Dracula Has Risen from the Grave" for instance. Villarias made a long career, in USA, Mexico, and finally Spain. Some of his early Mexican films are rather good, including two or three horror titles.

Villarias' Dracula reminds me of Liberace, only not as scary.
Henry Nicolella

I've never seen him in anything else but I imagine Villarias would be good in a more realistic part.