Terrible Movie – Great Soundtrack

Back in the late 1970s, John Williams must have been the hardest working man in show business. I doubt if he took a day off since crafting the iconic soundtrack for Jaws in 1975. If there was a major movie, he seemed to have his name attached hoping he could work the same magic he did with either Star Wars (1977) or the aforementioned Jaws. There was also Midway (1976), Black Sunday (1977), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), The Fury (1978), Superman (1978) and 1941 (1979). Somewhere along the way, he worked in Dracula. Williams was the “go-to” guy!

Dracula (1979) was directed by John Badham who was coming off of the huge hit that was Saturday Night Fever (1977). I guess they had to give him something big to do so they gave him Dracula which was doing very well on the Broadway stage. The play had brought the star Frank Langella a lot of attention so he got cast in the movie. It was going to be a BIG movie so they were going to need a BIG soundtrack. They NEEDED John Williams. He was really busy, but they probably drove to his door with a forklift palette of money and he turned in a terrific soundtrack. Sadly, the movie was not as good as the soundtrack.

Laurence Olivier was crammed into the movie for gravitas I guess. There were film critic circles that still considered Larry to be the greatest actor of all time, but that greatness was not evident in this production. This was the era in which Olivier or his agent seemed bent on destroying whatever reputation he had. His Van Helsing was abominable and seemed to be a rehash of his squeaky character in A Little Romance which was also released in 1979.

Langella stank too. Unlike Olivier he attempted no accent as the Prince of Wallachia. I didn’t expect him to lay on a thick Hungarian accent a la Bela Lugosi, but he seems to be talking in his own American accent without any affectation. He comes off like a limp-wristed gigolo with a ’70s permanent rather than the Lord of the Undead. I thought Louis Jordan did a much better Count at around the same time on a production for PBS. Jordan was scary, and they remembered that he was the monster in the production rather than a windswept paramour on the cover of a bodice ripping paperback.

That being said, John Williams’ score is terrific. It’s a shame that it couldn’t be recycled for a better movie.

It’s funny, but now that I am looking at this album which I picked up for a buck at a flea market years ago, I am getting a distinct Tony Manero vibe from the count.