The film’s claim to adapting Bram Stoker is certainly accurate, although other versions since have reduced the veracity of that claim to the point that Count Dracula does the job no better or worse than they claim to. It accurately follows the Transylvanian sequences, the asylum scenes and the climactic pursuit of Dracula back to Transylvania. Characters such as Dr Seward and Quincey Morris make their first screen appearances in a film adaptation. The film even preserves some of Bram Stoker’s dialogue intact. On the other hand, there are definitely some sequences missing – the Demeter crash is absent, no doubt for budgetary reasons, as well as the eerily ambient climactic scenes where Dracula is tracked with a hypnotized Mina. Similarly, the very faithfulness to the source material leaves the film inheriting the book’s one great problem – namely that after a great opening, Dracula remains a player who only casts a shadow from off stage. Most other films pad the role out by expanding the number of Dracula’s onscreen appearances but this version does not and as a result, bar the opening, Dracula fairly much vanishes and Christopher Lee is to a large extent left in the same position he was in most of the Hammer Dracula sequels, present but with not a lot to do. Christopher Lee brings his customary dignity to the role – and is outfitted with the one novelty of any screen adaptation, playing a Dracula who progressively gets younger as Bram Stoker described in the book.

Certainly, among Jess Franco’s extraordinarily prolific output (nearly 200 films), Count Dracula is one of his better works. The first 15-20 minutes are some of most atmospheric moments of Franco’s directorial career – the moody journey through Transylvania; the scenes with Jonathan being picked up by a coach and Dracula as the coachman stopping to ward off marauding wolves; the two of them dining in an echoingly empty hall; Dracula’s impassioned recitation of his family history. Unfortunately, Franco, as though having exhausted himself in such concerted effort, then lets the film fall away to indifference. The two next scenes, which are stand-out set-pieces in the book – where Dracula’s wives attempt to seduce Jonathan and Dracula’s wall-climbing trick – are conducted with dreary disinterest. As the film keeps going, the more Jess Franco’s usual pedestrian cheapness affects the exercise. A scene invented over the book that tries to build something threatening up out of frenetic crosscutting between closeups of stuffed birds is woeful.

The one interesting contrast between this and the Hammer Dracula is how much of a continental Dracula rather than a specifically English Dracula that this is. Count Dracula was made as a co-production between several European countries. Hammer’s florid stagebound dramatics and even Stoker’s gloomy coastal English locations have been replaced by a distinctive Spanish Old World feel – set in and around Spanish buildings, churches and graveyards – which provides a very different atmosphere to the story. Equally noticeable is the non-Anglicised cast – most glaringly obvious being the casting of the character of the Texan Quincey with the distinctly Teutonic Jack Taylor.

In the end, Count Dracula is a noble endeavour that has befallen a cheap producer and a hack director. Had the same exercise been made with one of the contemporary continental directors such as Mario Bava or Riccardo Freda at the helm we could have had a potential classic on our hands.

Other adaptations of Dracula are:– Nosferatu (1922); Dracula (1931), starring Bela Lugosi; Hammer’s classic Dracula/The Horror of Dracula (1958) with Christopher Lee; Dan Curtis’s tv movie Dracula (1974), starring Jack Palance; the BBC mini-series Count Dracula (1977), with Louis Jourdan; Dracula (1979) with Frank Langella; Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) with Klaus Kinski; Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) with Gary Oldman; the modernised Italian-German adaptation Dracula (2002) with Patrick Bergin; Guy Maddin’s ballet adaptation Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary (2002); the BBC tv movie Dracula (2006) with Marc Warren; the low-budget modernised Dracula (2009); and Dario Argento’s upcoming Dracula 3D (2012) with Thomas Kretschmann as Dracula.

Jess Franco’s other genre films are:– The Awful Dr Orloff (1962), The Sadistic Baron Von Klaus (1962), The Secret of Dr Orloff (1964), Attack of the Robots (1966), The Diabolical Dr Z/Miss Death (1966), The Blood of Fu Manchu (1968), Necronomicon/Succubus (1968), The Castle of Fu Manchu (1969), Justine (1969), Kiss Me Monster (1969), 99 Women (1969), Sadisterotica/Red Lips (1969), The Seven Secrets of Sumuru/The Girl from Rio/Rio 70 (1969), Venus in Furs/Paroxysmus (1969), The Bloody Judge/Night of the Blood Monster (1970), Eugenie/Philosophy in the Boudoir (1970), Nightmares Come at Night (1970), Vampyros Lesbos (1970), Dracula, Prisoner of Frankenstein (1971), She Killed in Ecstasy (1971), The Corpse Packs His Bags (1972), Daughter of Dracula (1972), The Demons (1972), Doctor Mabuse (1972), The Erotic Adventures of Frankenstein (1972), The Silence of the Tomb (1972), The Sinister Eyes of Dr Orloff (1973), The Bare-Breasted Countess/Eroti-Kill/Female Vampire (1973), The Erotic Adventures of Maciste in Atlantis (1973), The Obscene Mirror (1973), A Virgin Among the Living Dead/Christina, Princess of Eroticism (1973), Lorna the Exorcist (1974), The Perverse Countess (1974), Eugenie (1975), Doriana Grey (1976), Jack the Ripper (1976), Night of the Assassins (1976), Sexy Sisters (1976), Greta the Mad Butcher/Wanda the Wicked Warden (1977), Voodoo Passion (1977), Wicked Women (1977), Demoniac/Exorcism/The Ripper of Notre Dame (1979), Man Hunter/The Devil Hunter (1980), White Cannibal Queen (1980), Bloody Moon (1981), Oasis of the Zombies (1981), Revenge of the House of Usher (1982), Grave of the Living Dead (1983), The Treasure of the White Goddess (1983), The Sinister Dr Orloff (1984), Mansion of the Living Dead (1985), Faceless (1987), The Killer Barbies (1996), Lust for Frankenstein (1998), Marie-Cookie and the Killer Tarantula in 8 Legs to Love You (1998), Tender Flesh (1998), Vampire Blues (1999), Vampire Junction (2001), Incubus (2002), Killer Barbies vs Dracula (2002), Snakewoman (2005) and Paula-Paula (2010).