1979 in Film: Frank Langella’s Thirst Trap – On Dracula

An icon of both cinema and literature, few characters are as recognizable as Count Dracula. So many artists have taken a stab at Bram Stoker’s devilish creation—or ripped off the property entirely—that it’s practically a horror rite of passage. Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee, Udo Kier, Gary Oldman, and even Leslie Nielsen have played the part. But in the summer of 1979, moviegoers set their sights on the sexiest of the Draculas.

Audiences first met Frank Langella’s Dracula in the fall of 1977 at the then-named Martin Beck Theatre on Broadway. The production was a revival the 1920s theatrical adaptation of the novel that served as the blueprint for Tod Browning’s 1931 film. Overall, it was a success, garnering five Tony nominations—including Lead Actor for Langella.

In Stoker’s novel, the Count is ugly and old and stinky. But Frank Langella is none of those things. He’s beauty, he’s grace, he’s Mr. Undead State. (Please forgive me.) Absolutely swoon-worthy, Langella’s Dracula is more alluring than alarming. He’s a sexual creature of darkness, a dashing ladykiller in search of a bride to spend his undying days with. His erotically charged Count is a well mannered Edwardian aristocrat whose magnetism enriches every room he enters.

Speaking of rooms, the art direction is complimentarily opulent. Sparing no expenses, Dracula’s castle is a goth lover’s fantasy. Ostentatious cobwebs adorn every corner and piece of furniture. A never-ending supply of dry ice keeps the place thoroughly fogged. And the whole thing is practically lit by approximately one million drippy candles. It’s a lush, macabre dream house.

“Absolutely swoon-worthy, Langella’s Dracula is more alluring than alarming.”

Fresh off Saturday Night Fever, director John Badham reminds us that he’s no stranger to flash. Before we see the magnificent sets, the opening sequence establishes the film’s serious special effects budget. A dark and stormy sea tosses a ship bound for England from tidal wave to tidal wave. Lit only by cracks of lightning, seaman run and scream as a malevolent beast slashes them and rips their throats out, until the vessel crashes ashore with Count Dracula as the sole survivor of the perceived accident.

His body is found on the beach by Mina (who this film has decided is the daughter of Prof. Van Helsing for some reason). After the Count has recovered, he attends dinner (but doesn’t eat) at the cliffside mansion residence of Mina’s friend Lucy (who this film has decided is the daughter of Dr. Seward—Mina’s father in the novel). He charms nearly everyone present with his intellect and his worldliness and his… visage.

Langella performed as Dracula in front of sold-out audiences for weeks before stepping in front of Gilbert Taylor’s lens. Night after night, he found the character’s humanity and carefully crafted a full-fleshed, woeful Count who carries a cloud of implicit sadness around with him. When Dracula refers to the howling “children of the night,” there’s longing there. He lacks a community, and partnership. The only of his kind, he’s a true other who fears perishing alone.

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This perpetual loneliness adds a salient layer to Langella’s incarnation. There’s a down side to living forever, after all. Without an immortal mate, he’ll spend eternity alone, unless he can persuade someone to take his hand. His Dracula thus utilizes a calculated balance of feline elegance and wolfish virility to bewitch women. Easy on the eyes, he has a softer facade than most Draculas, making him a cunning casanova. It’s clear why so many fans wanted to be bit. Hell, I did.

Dracula is a highly sexual being, yes, but he’s also an incredibly vulnerable gentleman.

In a sense, he is not an antagonist but rather a sympathetic outsider. Langella does not present his Count in the gauche, stilted fashion we’re accustomed to seeing in garish knockoffs. Instead of menacing, he’s romantic and dangerously seductive. He uses an urbane poise to lure mates. His gestures are precise. Every mannerism is deliberate.

Lucy seems drawn to him almost immediately. A bit of a dissident herself, at dinner she shares her fondness for the macabre, to Dracula’s pleasure. Later, she pays a visit to the Count’s home—on her own accord—and reveals her lustful feelings for him. (Can you blame her?) They then carnally express their mutual attraction in a trippy love-making sequence set in a hellish kaleidoscope of horniness. (I want to go to there.)

“Langella does not present his Count in the gauche, stilted fashion we’re accustomed to seeing in garish knockoffs.”

Kate Nelligan’s Lucy is strong-willed and determined, not frail or gullible. She embraces the night of her own volition. This nocturnal side of hers is carefully demonstrated early through costume designer Julie Harris’ choices. Wide sleeves with wing panels conjure bat-like imagery. And when Lucy develops physical signs of vampirism, the men desperately perform a futile blood transfusion. But Lucy’s awakening cannot be stopped. There’s no converting her back.

They—Van Helsing, Seward, and Harker—are the real villains of this film: day-walkers, free to move about as the default class, who disdain anything unordinary. They cower behind their crucifixes—a symbol of repression for many outside the norm—so as to keep themselves and their loved ones from being roused. They actively seek to destroy perceptibly evil queer beings—with a stake to the heart.

Banished to the moonlight, envious of those who thrive in sunshine, Dracula is a tortured soul. A sympathetic figure unable to live as a full member of society. In Lucy, he finds his match, his equal. She relinquishes her privilege to be with him, but their love is met with prejudice. In John Badham’s Dracula, Frank Langella shapes the titular Count into a deeply tragic character and truly sets this iteration apart, making him as much an auteur of this film as the director.