While Franco's relatively faithful adaptation has its faults, Lee's portrayal of a greying and weary Boyar is possibly my favourite Dracula. You really get the sense that he's been there, seen it, done it and left a trail of impaled corpses in his wake.
Also of note is the unique and ghostly way that Franco shows Dracula's brides rising from their coffins, Kinski's quietly insane Renfield, Soledad Miranda's child-murdering Lucy and some pretty effective, no-budget effects consisting of a few shadows and silhouettes.
An unusually restrained outing from Franco but one I thoroughly enjoyed.
I call bullshit on the comedy tag. La Dolce Vita is as sad and depressing as any neorealist work. The party in the final episode; total degradation.
From the opening scene of the rain covered, neon-lit streets of the city, superimposed over Chow Yun-Fat sweating, drinking a slammer and playing clarinet in a dark jazz club, we can see that this film matches its title perfectly. This is a Hard-Boiled police story in the grand tradition of Harry Callaghan, Popeye Doyle and Frank Bullitt. Everything is black and white, the hero does what needs to be done to save the day and if the brass at City…
I know I've been absent for a few weeks but my wife has had another Multiple Sclerosis relapse and is due to go back into hospital for another course of treatment - it's the same chemotherapy as they give leukaemia patients. Plus I've had to do a load of construction/carpentry work on my daughters bedroom and other assorted shit. Anyway, I thought I should at least try to get back into the swing of things and what better than the…
