Night of the Living Dead (1968)

"Night of the Living Dead" (George A. Romero, 1968) Johnny and Barbara (Russell Streiner and Judith O'Dea) are two dutiful kids who schlep all the way up to a high hill-top cemetery outside of Pittsburgh to put a rememberance on their father's grave. It's a big deal to Barbara, but not to Johnny (who hasn't been to church lately) and, according to his grandfather, is "goink to Hale!" It's the Summer Solstice, 8 pm at night but still light out, and there's a thunderstorm a-brewing.

Boy, howdy!

There's not a soul around at the cemetery, but that doesn't mean there's no activity. There's that tall unsteady guy in the dark suit over there (S. William Hinzman), looking a little pale. In fact, it looks like he hasn't had a bite in days! But Johnny, still the same disrespectful cut-up he was when he and Barb were kids, can't help making fun: "They're coming to GET you, Barbara..." he dramatically intones, not realizing that he may be right for once in his miserable life. Before he knows it, that tall pale guy is attacking Barbara, and when Johnny steps in, the thing attacks him, trying to bite his neck. Before long, Johnny is taking a dirt-nap with a tombstone for a pillow, and "Gary Shambling" is chasing Barbara out of the bone-yard.

Then, it's all down-hill from there.

Within ten minutes she's trapped in a farm-house surrounded by flesh-eating zombies trying to get in—good thing they seem unable to open doors! And it's a good thing that Ben (Duane Jones) has happened to run out of gas nearby. The reason? Barbara is probably the last human being alive you want to be trapped with during a zombie attack (that is described by a newscaster as "wholesale murder"—life being cheap, I guess) Hysterical and useless, she seems incapable of doing anything except the exact-opposite of what should be done in a crisis, and is at her best when she's numb with shock.* Ben, on the other hand, is smart, competent, logical and efficient, well aware that this is no "Sunday School Picnic," and a fast study, figuring out that perforating zombie brain-pans with anything from bullets to tire-irons is the only way to stop them.

Ben may be the greatest hero in all of horror films; that he is African-American, the only black face in a crowd of white—and whiter—is just one of the sign-posts that "Night of the Living Dead" may be doing something more than target practice. Director George Romero protests up and down that Jones was hired because he was the best audition (and, indeed, he gives the best performance of the non-grunting, teeth-gnashing roles), but the fact that his Ben is so unquestionably in charge and handling the situation, despite his dithering neighbors in the buffet—and nothing is made of it—speaks volumes for a film made in 1968.

But you can read all sorts of social messages into "Night of the Living Dead," if that's what it takes to keep peeking at it through your fingers. It could be a treatise on race relations, sure. It could be a cautionary tale, as most of the victims are killed due to the actions of someone they loved. It could be a political statement of using unity against an implacable foe (like soulless communists), whether attacking from within or without. It could be a warning against the Tyranny of Science (radiation is the cause of it all, but that's as useful as being in a control group). Or it could be a protest against neighbors who drop by at odd hours to chew the fat. Maybe it's promoting vegetarianism. Whatever the reason, "Night of the Living Dead" sinks its teeth into more dynamic issues than "Is it better to be upstairs, or in the basement?" (Answer: Outside with "The Gun-Club").

Inspired by Herke Hervey's low-budget "Carnival of the Souls," Romero, who also made industrial films—and filmed shorts for "Mr. Roger's Neighborhood"—drew style-points from Richard Matheson's "I Am Legend," (and it's first screen adapation "The Last Man on Earth"), but amped up the dynamics with quickly cut hand-held shots and frequent close-ups of angry antagonists squaring off in low-light conditions. Romero also made a more grisly movie than folks were used to, although the gore was decidedly low-tech: for blood the crew poured Bosco over the victims (probably just made them more delectable for the zombies!).

"Night of the Living Dead" is a boiler-maker of a movie, determined to keep activities at a feverish pitch, and has none of the care of yesterday's "Carnival of the Souls." But, the sheer adrenaline that courses through the film makes it a dynamic film-going experience—upsetting, nihilistic, and cynical. In the public domain, it was made part of the National Film Registry in 1999. It has spawned more remakes and sequels (with more on the way) than just about any movie ever made.

You can watch "Night of the Living Dead"...for free...here.

Have a Safe and Sane Hallowe'en. Remember, no candy for zombies!

* That being the case, the first thing Ben should have told her was: "Barbara! Stay inside the house and whatever you do, don't go out there with those zombies!" It's a "win" either way!

Carnival of Souls (1962)

"Carnival of Souls" (Herk Harvey, 1962) Mary Henry (Candace Hilligoss) is a "tough-minded little thing," according to one of the characters of "Carnival of Souls." They don't know the half of it. She's tough and more than a little stubborn. She's in transit, already to go to her next job as a church organist in Salt Lake City. If she's acting a bit like a "cold fish," it's no wonder after what she's been through. Joy-riding with BFF's, caught in a drag-race gone wrong, her car went off a bridge and now they're "dragging" the river for the car. Mary is the only one to walk out of the river. She's acting different. Stand-offish, like she doesn't belong, and she's in a particular hurry to get to Utah.

Funny place, Utah. There's the welcoming sign that mocks "Please Drive Carefully." And for some reason, the radio stations only play haunting organ music. That happens right before Mary sees a ghoulish face staring at her through her window...but just as quickly as it appears, it's gone, following ... haunting her.

Being as it was made in 1962, "Carnival of Souls" would fit in well as an episode of "The Twilight Zone"—a more atmospheric one, to be sure. In fact, it resembles an early episode (Episode 16, in fact) from TZ's first season—itself an adaptation of a 1940's radio play called "The Hitch-Hiker." In the television version, Inger Stevens plays a woman travelling to a new job who sees the same ragged-looking hitch-hiker thumbing his way in her path, she even sees him in her rear-view mirror. By an interesting coincidence, the music for that episode was written by the gifted Bernard Herrmann, using his original score from the radio-play, written by Herrmann's first wife, Lucille Fletcher.* It has a lot in common with one of the last of the TZ episodes, as well, but to reveal which would give the whole movie away.

The entire film was shot for $33,000 by an industrial film-maker named Herk Harvey, who got the idea for the film passing an abandoned Pavilion in Salt Lake City. As a director, Harvey has a good eye for detail, and his locked-down framing of shots is precise and pain-staking. As events of the film get wilder and more phantasmagorical, he throws the camera mount away and begins to employ circling, dizzying shots, making the film more nightmarish and hallucinogenic. The effects are crude, as is some of the acting; Ms. Hilligoss carries the whole movie on her shoulders, and makes a fine vessel for the audience's interest in what's going on, but occassionally can be caught acting, setting her apart from the amateur performances that make up the bulk of the film. Harvey, himself, plays the ghoulish Man who seems to be following Mary, although his effectiveness is undercut in long takes by the worry that his make-up is going to melt off his face.

Still, the movie is long on atmospherics, and that's entirely due to Harvey's direction and a hypnotic organ score by Gene Moore that keeps pumping up "the creep" every time things get a bit dull.

Rough, crude, but with some decidedly sophisticated craft to it, "Carnival of Souls" delivers enough chills to deserve its cult-movie status.

It's in the Public Domain. You can watch "Carnival of Souls" here, for free.

* And just to assure you just how incestuous the entertainment industry is, the original star of that radio-play was Orson Welles, for whose first two movies Herrmann wrote the scores: "Citizen Kane" and "The Magnificent Ambersons."

The Exorcist III

"The Exorcist III" (William Peter Blatty, 1990) An odd little experiment in horror, more compelling than William Friedkin's chest-thumping original,* with more humor—Blatty had written some 60's screenplays for Blake Edwards—and some genuinely unnerving moments that may not make one jump out of one's seat (well, one thing will), but will certainly creep one out.

It begins with a little bit of catch-up and two fine actors who did not appear as these characters in the original "Exorcist"—but probably should have. Lieutenant Kinderman (George C. Scott) is meeting up with old friend Father Dyer (Ed Flanders). It has been 15 years since the events of the original "Exorcist," and the two men have had a steady friendship with shared lunches and grousing about their work-lives—Scott and Flanders are so good that they milk laughs out of lines that are as dry as a dessicated bone. When we see them, they're both trying to cheer each other up, remembering their mutual friend, Father Damian Karras (Jason Miller). It's an off-kilter, unnerving way to start a horror movie, a little bit like starting a speech laying off your employees with a joke. And that odd humor occurs often, with stray one-liners and the bizarre visual touch, sometimes lurched into the foreground, sometimes folded into the cracks of a frame. It walks arm and arm with Blatty's atmospherics of weighted...pauses in conversations, shifting shadows, slight zephyrs of wind, and the occasional breath of laughter. Odd and unnerving are the two words that best describe "The Exorcist III."

Kinderman is investigating a bizarre series of murders that has ties to the exorcism of Regan McNeil, that bear the un-publicized M.O. of "The Gemini Killer" executed 15 years before. As if that wasn't bizarre enough, the murderer leaves behind a different set of finger-prints each time. There is more than one killer with secret knowledge, and the investigation soon zeroes in on Georgetown's Catholic hospital, where in the bowels of the psych ward sits a chained amnesiac, named "Patient X." When Kinderman's investigation takes him to this room, he finds his friend, Fr. Damian Karras.

The film was compromised somewhat by the studio's insistence that there be an actual exorcism (by Nicol Williamson's cameo priest), thereby muddling up the finale, but the film up to then is disquieting and in a far less bluntly hammering way than Friedkin's head-revolving original. Blatty's direction makes you not trust the film, and to be wary of what awaits on the other side of every edit of the film (and just when you think you have his pattern figured out, Blatty will do something different).

He's not afraid to exploit Scott's penchant for showing untethered behavior, but the kudo's for the best performance of the film belong to Brad Dourif. Quick as mercury, quirky as Hell, his performance as "Patient X" (a role shared by Miller and the voice of Colleen Dewhurst, the former Mrs. Scott), is a tour de force played mostly to the camera in long unbroken takes, with the odd touch of a tear that slides down the left side of his face, and the electronic manipulation of his voice to drop it into the lower depths. The movie starts to fall apart once Dourif departs, but for most of its running time, it manages to rise above the other films in the series.

If you think you can take it, you can watch "The Exorcist III" (in 11 parts) on YouTube, starting here.

* And miles ahead of John Boorman's "sexy beast" movie, the deservedly reviled spawn of satan: "The Exorcist II: The Heretic."

The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes

"The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" (Billy Wilder, 1970) It may be one of the best movies you've never seen. There's no mystery to that; no one's seen the full length version of "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes." Conceived in the heady days of the '60's, with their roadshow presentations (long ago extinct) that played one theater once a night, and in itself was a full evening's entertainment, "Private Life" was going to be a three hour epic (with intermission) that dramatised four "untold" tales of Sherlock Holmes (Robert Stephens) by his co-hort and longtime companion Dr. Watson (Colin Blakely). But, by the time of its completion, roadshows were no longer good box-office for theaters, Sherlock Holmes didn't seem to appeal to the "young" crowd, and one episode's extensive nudity would have slapped the movie with a restricted rating, further reducing the audience. At the time of "M*A*S*H," would anybody want a three-hour Sherlock Holmes movie?*

So, as sure as Dr. Watson is with a knife, "Private Life" was eviscerated, the prologue and two of its mysteries hacked away (no complete version remains of these sequences), leaving the third (the Russian ballet story) and the post-Intermission grand story involving the Loch Ness monster, the dead parakeets, the monks, and the midgets as the only evidence of the crime. All that's left are scattered clues of a better film—pieces of scenes hidden away in the "Bonus Materials" of the current DVD, collections of pictures with no soundtrack, soundtracks with no pictures. Elements are lost, stolen or strayed. Wilder was heart-broken, saying that the movie felt longer cut down to 2 hours.**

Truncated and compromised as it is, it is still probably the best Sherlock Holmes movie ever made and that includes the quickie Basil Rathbone's, and the BBC series with the inimitable Jeremy Brett (which has a similar love for the arcana and dusty minutiae of the Holmes canon) and the thousand of impostors who are satisfied with merely the deerstalker, the Inverness cape, the mahogany calabash with meerschaum bowl,*** and the fustiness. Though not "official," and certainly having fun with the Great Detective, it still manages to take Conan Doyle's consulting detective and surround him with an engagingly modern story with the benefits of historical hind-sight.

The movie began as a proposed musical to feature Peter O'Toole as Holmes and Peter Sellers as Watson (!!), but over the course of the '60's, the film evolved into the basic Wilder formula of the unmasking of subterfuge and becoming an only somewhat strait-laced series of adventures. The ones that remain have a sub-text of Holmes' sexuality—he uses his co-habiting with Watson as a means to avoid being a "donor" for a Russian ballerina seeking to produce brilliant prodigy, and his seduction (more like playing along) of Madame Valladon (Geneviève Page) to glean more information—both incidents leaving Watson sputtering indignation—that leave the matter, finally, obliquely melancholy.

That's the "Private" section.

The mystery of the Madame Valladon, found floating in the Thames, and her missing engineer-husband will consume Holmes for the majority of the movie, his motivations conflicted between curiosity, a sense of justice, enticement of the mystery, his conflicted relations (or lack of them) with brother Mycroft (Christopher Lee), and an odd empathy with Valladon. For Watson, it's a welcome relief from hiding the syringe from Holmes. The solution of it will leave the detective even more conflicted, as his actions create a double negation, sending him back to drugs and questioning his abilities.

Despite not being an official Holmes story, it feels more of a tribute than even Conan Doyle's work, for here the focus is on Holmes and less on the poor innocents whose worlds have been invaded by evil and the un-British. As such, it gives us a peek behind the steel curtain of Holmes' reasoning, to show us a bit of the man behind the detective.

Appropriately, what you find is another mystery.

"The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" can be seen...for free...on Hulu.com.

* All I need do to point out the efficacy of the character is to say that he's pulling in good numbers for his current TV-show. Holmes doesn't have a TV show? What about the "consulting" physician who can "read" patients and every week has a mystery that even his intellect is challenged to solve, who is a social mis-fit, addicted to narcotics, and has a friend that he sometimes shares quarters with by the name of (ahem) Dr. James Wilson? And as he's not a "Holmes," he's a "House." I'm surprised nobody thought of Hugh Laurie to play Holmes before now? (Probably too identified as "Wooster!")

** It's a strange phenomenon, but it happens—I can vouch for it. Full-length movies that are well-done feel like shorter movies that films that are edited for time. It has something to do with continuity, flow-through of the story-line, cutting rhythm—hard to say. But I do know that sitting through the SIFF premiere presentation of Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time in America" in its Paramount studio's strict timeline version seemed interminable, while Leone's original flashback structure, which is a good 45 minutes longer, seems to streak by.

*** Devotee's of the Doyle stories know that Holmes doesn't...and probably wouldn't...use such a pipe, preferring harsh tobaccos that would be disastrously mellowed by the meerschaum bowl. It's only become "the" pipe for Holmes (it's even used in this film's poster!) due to the stage and filmed versions of the Holmes character. Blame William Gillette.

A Serious Man

"Dybbuk Stops Here" or "Shlimazel Tov"

Mel Brooks once described comedy thus: "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die."

Chevy Chase once queried: "If Helen Keller fell down in a forest, would she make a sound?"

The point being that the act of observation calls into question the validity and interpretation of something happening. The one thing on which anthropologists, media critics and quantum physicists agree is that looking at something may change it's behavior.* Without observation we can't be sure: is the cat in the box alive or dead?; would the Louds have divorced without the filming of "An American Family?" Did the presence of Margaret Mead change the behavior of the Samoans she was studying? If a schlemiel spills hot soup on a shlimazel in an empty restaurant, is it a brokh or bupkes? Scrutiny changes things.

Take Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg). When we first see him, Larry is being scrutinized right down to his bones—he's having a chest X-ray performed. But the dissection doesn't stop there. A physics professor, he's being considered ... closely ... for tenure by his department-heads. His curriculum involves lectures on understanding the Universe through mathematics to explain such scientific folklore as the quantum theories of Schrödinger's cat and Heisenberg's "Uncertainty Principle."

But if Larry wanted to teach them about "Verschränkung" and make it stick, all he'd have to do is plan a field-trip to his own Minneapolis house. There, his world is being mired in cosmic strings.

His wife (Sari Lennick) wants a divorce—specifically a "get,"** a Jewish divorce decree, so that she can remarry in the faith—as she's been "seeing" family-friend Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed)—the "serious man" of the title. Sy's giving Larry "serious" tsuris by being gentlemanly about stealing his wife, but he has to stand in line to do it. His son Danny (Aaron Wolff), who's about to be bar-mitzvahed, is a pot-head and a nudzh, as self-absorbed as his daughter (Jessica McManus). Then there's Larry's brother Arthur (Richard Kind), an out-of-work nudnik who gambles and is constantly draining a sebaceous cyst, while working on his own form of physics—a "Mentaculus"—literally, scribblings in a notebook, that somehow develops a system for winning at poker. A South Korean student of Larry's is trying to get a better grade to keep his scholarship, and Larry finds an envelope of C-notes on his desk; is the student trying to bribe him? He can't really know without seeing the student place the envelope on his desk. He's also being vaguely warned by a colleague that his tenure is in danger from anonymous "denigrating" letters to the deciding committee. From whom? For what? Larry has no control over these events, does nothing (as he says again and again) to provoke them, and everywhere he turns, more pile on and on and on, like an equation, or an involved comedic story, that has no resolution.

As they say, it's always something.

But Larry keeps looking for answers—from his lawyers, from his rabbi's—some bissel, or quantum, of understanding of what is happening to him, trying to find the presence of Hashem in all of this. But even from the roof-tops he can't gain perspective. The signals aren't clear, and there's always a new disaster around every corner, behind every phone-call. And in the close-knit Jewish community, there is always scrutiny, if only from God.

It's a wonderful conceit from the literate Coen Brothers: taking the messy travails that assault the Jewish men in the works of, say, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Saul Bellow, or Philip Roth and looking for the answers in quantum mechanics, where the concerns of God might have been previously. But, they also take it to another meta level, where the artificial world of cinema (or fiction) adds another level of scrutiny.

Orson Welles said, "If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story." After a sense of complacency, "A Serious Man" ends on the cusp of two more disasters, literally going to black before they hit. Who knows? Maybe the very act of not observing the outcomes may change them. Maybe we're complicit in the disasters, as is implied by quantum mechanics, as God might have been in the old world.

What does God want? Maybe exactly the same thing that an audience wants—a good show. And the act of observing manifests it quantumly for the shlimazels.

Damned clever, these Coens. Turning movie-watching into a study in physics. You don't see that every day.***

Having seen "A Serious Man," I think it's a Full-Price Ticket. Outcomes may vary.

* It's formal name is "The Hawthorne Effect," or "Observer Effect."

** "A what?" asks all the specialists in the movie when confronted with this word.

*** Actually, you probably have if you've seen "No Country for Old Men," or "Burn After Reading." The film-makers, there, are concerned with the pre-determination of destiny and randomness.

The Natural

"The Natural" (Barry Levinson, 1984) Bernard Malamud's novel "The Natural" took America's penchant for mythologizing its sports-heroes, and combined it with Arthurian legend to create one of the great sports novels of all time. The tale of a baseball player, Roy Hobbs (Robert Redford) appearing in Major League Baseball, seemingly effortless of bat and glove, creating miracles in the field, has all the elements of nature and the Divine (his bat, "Wonderboy", was carved from a tree struck by lightning), the contest (he strikes out "The Whammer" (based on "Babe" Ruth), trials (his father's death, a near-fatal shooting, lost love) and battles which weaken him and threaten his reputation. Malamud completes the connection with Legend, by making Roy Hobbes vulnerable to attack from within and without, finally defeated by the passing age and his own failings.

The film made of "The Natural" is all about the myth; Caleb Deschanel's pristine picture post-card cinematography, lovingly back-lit by a dying sun makes a past perfect to the eye. There are few films as lovingly shot as "The Natural," and Barry Levinson, learning to be a pictorial director rather than just a shoot-and-run cast-coordinator of his own material, turns the film into an article of his devotion as a sports lover. In fact, despite the intrusion of some adult material—the hanky-panky with a team "widow" (Kim Basinger) and Hobbes' earlier indiscretions, it is a small child's view of baseball, where grown men playing a kids' game are larger-than-life heroes, miracles happen on one's own efforts and the glories last a life-time. From such a viewpoint—at about the strike-zone—everything looks Legendary.

The cast is crowded with good actors doing some great work—not just Redford, whose own mythical presence of Aryan American brings its considerable WASP-ish weight to the story, but also Glenn Close, Wilford Brimley, Richard Farnsworth, Robert Duvall, Barbara Hershey, Joe Don Baker, Darren McGavin and Basinger. Layered over the top of the confection is Randy Newman's score—a combination of boogie-woogie, keening Americana and heraldic brass.*

Front-loaded with so much talent one would think of the natural as a grand-slam, the mythology built up to accentuate suspense** (Will Hobbs hit the game-winning home run? Will it kill him? What about his new-found family? Will the gambling interests destroy him, no matter what?) It comes down to the last pitch and a finale so overblown that the only thing that could top it would be Hobbs ascending into Heaven, forget the impossibility of the stadium-wide natural fireworks display of the type pulled off by Levinson and crew. The crowd I first saw it with burst into spontaneous applause at the denouement, so, obviously it was a hit with audiences, despite what I considered an error on the play. Me? I thought the game was rigged.

For in Malamud's novel, Hobbs strikes out, is damned by the press and public and fades away, a passing moment of the age, when miracles happened unsullied by the evils of the world like the Knights of Olde. Hobbs is defeated by the times. Not the movie-Hobbs, who is given his triumph and more, a return to simplicity, the sinking sun of previous shots now giving him a roseate glow,*** a Disneyfication of Malamud's intent.

* Redford, according to Newman, wasn't fond of the score: "I don't like horns" he was reported to have groused to the composer. Cooler heads prevailed. During an interview broadcast on Bravo, Newman said that there were half-hearted lyrics for the fanfaric Main Theme: "Look at that man/The Nat'ral/As nat'ral a man as can be/He hits the ball/And that's not all/So Na-tu-ral/Is he."

** I would put a "Spoiler Alert" on this review, but, really, the outcome is never in doubt, telegraphed by the score's hushed anticipation, and that everything joyous in the film, is presented in weighty slow-motion. Besides at that point in his career, Redford didn't want his characters to be weak—he had turned down "The Verdict," which pal Paul Newman snapped up and won a Best Actor Nomination.

*** The term used for those hours of twilight and dawn with the sun at its lowest point, providing long shadows, and a rose-colored glow is "Magic Hour."

Don't Make a Scene: Dracula (1931)

The Story: And now, submitted for your pleasure and Hallowe'en pre-functioning, this cautionary tale of getting into the real estate trade.

Poor, poor Renfield. Not only did he take the place of Jonathan Harker in the transition from Bram Stoker's novel to the 1931 movie version of "Dracula", but he was also played by Dwight Frye, whose over-the-top capering would inform many a hunched lab assistant in the years to follow (If he had a nickel for every time he said "Master..."). The changing of Renfield to the man Dracula has over for dinner simplifies the story, somewhat, but also severs the tragic ties that Stoker's eventually leads to in the fate of Mina Harker.

Last week, we had a scene from "Ed Wood," a Tim Burton film that partially chronicles the friendship between the hapless director and the fading film star Bela Lugosi. Here is the man in his prime, in fact, his pinnacle. Bela Lugosi never had greater fame than as the vampire Count, playing him to ecstatic reviews on Broadway and then on film—a few times, in fact, where he bolstered ever-weakening scripts, breathing life into them quite counter to his role as a blood-sucker.

And it's not a theatrical performance, as the impressionists have made it.* The secret to Lugosi's Dracula is a preternatural stillness—the creepiness instilled by one who stares at you for too long. A stalking look that bides its time. That stillness is used all too rarely in horror films, but you can still find it on occasion. In fact, I'd bet the Oscar Anthony Hopkins won for his Hannibal Lecter in "The Silence of the Lambs " is partially owed to Bela Lugosi.

Stillness is also part of Tod Browning's directing scheme: there are...a lot...of awkward...pauses, emphasizing Renfield's unease, and very few of Browning's shots move—this was, after all, one of the early sound movies and the cameras were bulky and inflexible—but when they do move...cover your throat. Here, he trucks the camera towards Dracula when he sees the blood seeping from Renfield's finger, in a sort of cinematic blood-rush?

Mention must also be made of a lighting technique that is employed in Dracula's close-up's—the strip of light that emphasizes the eyes (for certain shots Lugosi wore painful reflecting contact lenses). There is a more technical term, I'm sure, but a director of acquaintance always referred to it as "Kirk lighting," as it was employed often to show William Shatner's Captain Kirk on the original "Star Trek" in moments of distress/sorrow.

The Set-Up: Renfield (Dwight Frye) has arrived at the Transylvanian castle of the Count Dracula (Bela Lugosi). The Count has written in interest of leasing Carfax Abbey in a fresher clime. And Mr. Renfield has endured quite a bit for his client in transit. The last carriage ride was particularly upsetting. But now he has entered the Count's castle and is dwarfed by the immensity of the foyer, which is in some disrepair...and seems to be infested with...armadilloes. Now, his host descends the vast stair-way gated by huge spider-webs to show him his room and see to his needs.

A meal has been prepared.

Action!

THE CASTLE FOYER

Renfield enters the Count's castle, he's dwarfed by the ancient entry-way and looks around warily, his attention distracted by bats hovering by a window and strange creatures that seem to appear from the crevices of the walls. He doesn't even notice his guest walking quietly down the stairs.

DRACULA: I am...Dracula.

RENFIELD: It's really good to see you. I don't know what happened to the driver and my luggage and...well...with all this, I thought I was in the wrong place.

Dracula: I bid you welcome.

Dracula pivots and heads upstairs.

Offstage: Wolf call

DRACULA: Listen to them...children of the night. What music they make!

The Count turns and ascends the stairs, seeming to pass through vast collections of spider-webs the criss-cross the landing.Renfield follows Dracula, breaking a path through the spiderwebs.

DRACULA: A spider spinning his web for the unwary fly.

DRACULA: The blood...is the life, Mr. Renfield.

RENFIELD: Why, yes.

RENFIELD'S BED-CHAMBER
Enter Dracula and Renfield

DRACULA: I'm sure you will find this part of my castle more inviting.

RENFIELD: Oh, rather! It's quite different from outside. Oh, and the fire! It's so cheerful.

DRACULA: I didn't know but that you might be hungry.

RENFIELD: Thank you. That's very kind of you.

RENFIELD: But I'm a bit worried about my luggage. You see, all your papers were in...
DRACULA: I took the liberty of having your luggage brought up. Allow me.

RENFIELD: Oh, yes. Thanks.

The Count takes Renfield's coat and bags to an aft-chamber, the doors seeming to open on their open, and shortly he returns.

DRACULA: I trust you have kept your coming here...a secret?

RENFIELD: I've followed your instructions implicitly.

DRACULA: Excellent, Mr. Renfield, excellent. And now, if you're not too fatiqued...

DRACULA: ...I would like to discuss the lease on Carfax Abbey.
RENFIELD: Oh, yes. Everything is in order, awaiting your signature.

RENFIELD: Here...here is the lease. I hope I've brought enough labels for your luggage.

DRACULA: I am taking with me only three...boxes.

RENFIELD: Very well.

DRACULA: I have chartered a ship to take us to England. We will be leaving...tomorrow...evening.

RENFIELD: Everything will be ready.

DRACULA: (pointing to bed) I hope you will find this comfortable.

RENFIELD: Thanks. It looks very inviting.
Renfield cuts his finger on a paperclip.

RENFIELD: Ouch!

DRACULA stealthily approaches Renfield
Renfield's crucifix falls over the cut finger.

DRACULA turns quickly away, as if stricken, shielding himself with his cape.

RENFIELD: Oh, it's nothing serious.

RENFIELD: Just a small cut from that paperclip.

RENFIELD: It's just a scratch.

DRACULA: (pouring a glass of wine) This...is very old wine.

DRACULA: I hope you will like it.

RENFIELD: Aren't you drinking?

DRACULA: I never drink...wine.

RENFIELD: Well...

RENFIELD (drinks): ....It's delicious.
DRACULA: And now, I'll leave you.

RENFIELD: Well, good night.

DRACULA: Good night, Mr. Renfield.

Dracula lingers at the door, watching his guest.

Dracula exits. Renfield is left to survey his surroundings, and is overcome with a wave of sleepiness.

"Dracula"

Words by Hamilton Deane, John L. Balderston, Garrett Fort, and Dudley Murphy, Louis Bromfield, Tod Browning, Max Cohen and Louis Stevens

Pictures by Karl Freund and Tod Browning

"Dracula" is available on DVD from Univeral Home Video.

* My favorite is "The Count" from "Sesame Street." He even gets the dramatic "wine" pause right: "I am the Count! I love to count...things."