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Dracula (1979). Do you own the OST, and have you seen the movie?


Josh500

Dracula (1979)  

77 members have voted

  1. 1. Do you own the OST album of Dracula?

  2. 2. Have you seen the movie Dracula (1979)?

  3. 3. Will you get the 2018 edition of "Dracula" from Varese Sarabande?



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Yes I saw the movie way back in the 80’s, don’t remember much about it.

 

Yes, I bought the original album on CD when it was first released. 

 

And yes i bought the new release as soon as it went on sale Monday.

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1 hour ago, El Jefe said:

Yes I saw the movie way back in the 80’s, don’t remember much about it.

 

 

So how old are you? If you don't mind me asking. :D

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First saw the film on VHS in the mid 80's. Saw it again on TV a few years later (on hearing the opening titles I immediately recognised it as a Williams composition - at that stage I was still figuring out the Williams filmography - no Internet ya see).

 

I purchased the V/S CD issue in the early 90's. Got the letterbox NTSC laserdisc shortly after the format went belly up (mint). Have not gotten around to watching it.

 

This new DE is a most pleasant and very unexpected surprise.

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26 minutes ago, JTWfan77 said:

First saw the film on VHS in the mid 80's. Saw it again on TV a few years later (on hearing the opening titles I immediately recognised it as a Williams composition - at that stage I was still figuring out the Williams filmography - no Internet ya see).

 

Interesting.

 

When I was a kid, there was no Internet, either. That all slowly began (the worldwide descent into madness, one might say) when I was 14 or 15. 

 

But I started listening to JW when I was 12, when Jurassic Park came out. I remember a kid in my school had the Spielberg/Williams Collaboration CD, and he was nice enough to lend it to me. So that's how I learned that the composer who wrote the music for Jurassic Park also wrote the music for Jaws, Indiana Jones, Close Encounters, and--by God--even E.T.! I was awed and flabbergasted. And I was hooked for life! (Although Hook came later for me.) :D

 

Anyway, back then, I had no idea what else JW wrote or had written, either. There was just no way of finding out, it seems.... because the gum-chewing pimple-faced clerks at the record store had no idea, either. So it was always a pleasant surprise when I happened on a movie poster on the street and it had John Williams's name on it.... That's how I knew I had to see that movie in the theatre and then buy the soundtrack! 

 

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Of course I knew about the heavy hitters like Star Wars (my entry point to the JW oeuvre), Superman, CE3K, Raiders, Jaws and ET, but the non-blockbusters were unknown to me.

 

My go-to sources in those days were the local public library (Halliwell's Film Guide proved invaluable, as was Tony Thomas' Film Score: A View from the Podium - it had a discography but was dated early-mid 70's so nothing after Earthquake and Eiger), back covers of VHS movies at the rental joints and photocopies of the Schwann Record, Tape and CD Catalog sent to me by a music store in another city.

 

Later came mailed out soundtrack lists from retailers who placed tiny ads in various movie related periodicals (which I perused courtesy of my local news agent). Regular visits to the cinema to see the posters of forthcoming attractions were also helpful.

 

In those days we had to work for our information.

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I own the OST (one of my first online purchases ever back in late 90's), have seen the film and have already ordered the complete score release. Dracula, hell yeah!

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1 minute ago, Brundlefly said:

It's a scandal considering Dracula is one of the best Williams-scored movies!

Riiiiiight...:P 

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14 minutes ago, Josh500 said:

So 64 people have voted so far, and 32 have seen the movie, 32 have not. 

 

Can this be right? 😄

 

I have seen it a couple of days ago! But I cannot change my vote, it seems.

 

Anyway, a couple of things in the score, that I was wondering about, now make sense. The movie, of course, is a bit dated, but better than I was expecting. The score is outstanding, of course, and I'll surely get the expanded edition.  

 

 

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What the hell?! Not even @Jay and @Bespin own the OST?! One is the administrator of JWFan and the other the inofficial discography guy of John Williams!

 

And @bollemanneke doesn't own the OST and still voted 'Hell no!' for the third question?!

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  • 1 month later...

By the time I became a big enough fan of John Williams, and film scores in general, and had enough income to try to buy ever JW OST ever released, the Dracula OST was long OOP and fetching insane amounts of money on the secondary market. So I never owned it on CD until the Varese DE.

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22 minutes ago, Jay said:

By the time I became a big enough fan of John Williams, and film scores in general, and had enough income to try to buy ever JW OST ever released, the Dracula OST was long OOP and fetching insane amounts of money on the secondary market. So I never owned it on CD until the Varese DE.

 

The 4 most expensive JW albums I bought on the secondary market: 

 

1. The Poseidon Adventure LLL (around 100 Euros)

2. Jaws 2 OST album (around 80 Euros)

3. The Eiger Sanction OST album (around 80 Euros)

4. Dracula OST album (around 80 Euros)

 

 

22 minutes ago, Wojism said:

Paying enormous prices for a used copy when JW won't see a dime of it is asinine. That's what copies are for. 

 

I'm sorry, but that's typically what poor people would say. Well-off people enjoy the process of acquiring and collecting hard to get items, even expensive stuff like jewelry, art, furniture, cars, etc.

 

A genuine Rolex watch, for example, costs around 10,000 USD on average. Poor people will say, "That's what copies are for!" Rich people wear it proudly and enjoy wearing it.

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On 11/1/2018 at 8:16 AM, Brundlefly said:

It's a scandal considering Dracula is one of the best Williams-scored movies!

Not in this universe.

 

There goes Josh making asinine assumptions about "poor" people. The way he spends money doesn't let you know if he has means or not but he certainly is loose with it for sure. 

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1 hour ago, Josh500 said:

A genuine Rolex watch, for example, costs around 10,000 USD on average. Poor people will say, "That's what copies are for!" Rich people wear it proudly and enjoy wearing it.

 

Until poor people kill them for wearing it. It's called compensatory justice.

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I have the film on Blu-ray. Unfortunately, they did a new colour grade for the Blu-ray that is absolutely awful. There's hardly any colour left and the modern-day palette they ended up with clashes horribly with all the other 1970's aesthetics.

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Supposedly the director always intended it to look that way, and the earlier home video releases were the incorrect ones *shrug*

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I thought it had been desaturated since the 1991 Laserdisc release.

 

Quote from the Wiki:

Quote

The 1979 theatrical version looks noticeably different from recent prints. When it was re-issued for a Widescreen Laserdisc release in 1991, the director chose to alter the color timing, desaturating the look of the film.

John Badham had intended to shoot the film in black and white (to mirror the monochrome 1931 film and the stark feel of the Gorey stage production), but Universal objected. Cinematographer Gilbert Taylor was prompted to shoot the movie in warm, "golden" colours, to show off the distinctive production design. The original version has been out of print for over 20 years.

 

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1 minute ago, Jay said:

Supposedly the director always intended it to look that way, and the earlier home video releases were the incorrect ones *shrug*

 

Admittedly, I've never seen any other version of the film. But the Bluray just looks off. Like I said, it's modern-day palette clashes with the other aesthetic elements. And it seems like nobody told the production designer or the cinematographer this is what they were going for. There's deep colours in the sets and coloured gels used all over the place, all destroyed by fiddling with the colour in post. All-in-all, it just my enjoyment of the film.

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It'd be nice if a future blu ray included both color pallettes.

 

There's probably some HD fan restoration of the original coloring available to download somewhere, I'd guess

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As I quoted above, Badham wanted to do it black-and-white, but the studio forced him to go big and loud Technicolor, so it's his way of getting back at them and approximating what he wanted in the first place. A bonus feature would be nice, but they'd have to include the whole film twice, possibly on two discs, and Badham would have to agree to it.

 

Some colour restoration surfaced this year but I haven't been able to locate it yet.

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The almost black 'n' white including one scene of intense red is a fantastic idea that exists merely because of the studio's meddling in the 70s and its correction by the director later. The original version just looks cheap and is too colourful.

Hopefully Dracula will be treated like the original Star Wars trilogy (which shouldn't be treated like the original Star Wars trilogy itself).

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4 minutes ago, Brundlefly said:

The original version just looks cheap and is too colourful.

That's what I'm dreading, chintzy 70s technicolor could ruin the whole thing and make it feel immensely dated.

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Jeez, do people even know what they are talking about? As if dedicated craftsmen didn't know how to shoot an expensive movie in 1979. The Technicolor version looks classy - this isn't suddenly a b/w movie only because Badham was allowed to turn down the color saturation. The movie was shot like an expensive color movie and should be seen this way. 

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2 hours ago, Brundlefly said:

Yes, in this universe.

You clearly have some inverse view of greatness. 

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15 minutes ago, JoeinAR said:

You clearly have some inverse view of greatness. 

And you don't know anything about movies. That's okay. Just don't scream your unbalanced opinions out loudly. That hurts.

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11 minutes ago, Brundlefly said:

And you don't know anything about movies. That's okay. Just don't scream your unbalanced opinions out loudly. That hurts.

My God you are so wrong in every way but at least you make me laugh or cringe we could play a stupid game of movie knowledge but I don't like to beat up on people

But considering your point that it is truly one of John Williams greatest scores I think most people will put the Empire Strikes Back first then in some order ET Star Wars Jaws Superman Close Encounters of the Third Kind Raiders of the Lost Ark Temple of Doom Last Crusade Schindler's List Jurassic Park the force awakens The Phantom Menace A.I. the Sorcerer's Stone the Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban. I think all of those are generally ranked ahead of Dracula but I'm glad if you love Dracula because it is a good score but it's not a good movie.

And while it's unfair to compare TV themes and a full movie score I know personally I'd rather hear the theme to Lost in Space and Lost in Space season 3 than Dracula

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2 hours ago, Holko said:

Some colour restoration surfaced this year but I haven't been able to locate it yet.

 

Nevermind, found it! Will post screens here when it downloads.

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2 hours ago, JoeinAR said:

I think most people will put the Empire Strikes Back first then in some order ET Star Wars Jaws Superman Close Encounters of the Third Kind Raiders of the Lost Ark Temple of Doom Last Crusade Schindler's List Jurassic Park the force awakens The Phantom Menace A.I. the Sorcerer's Stone the Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban...

 

Yes, and 90% of those are in there because they are big blockbusters, not because they are necessarily the greatest movies (or scores, though the ratio there is certainly higher).

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2 hours ago, publicist said:

 

Yes, and 90% of those are in there because they are big blockbusters, not because they are necessarily the greatest movies (or scores, though the ratio there is certainly higher).

But remember many of the early ones were surprises.  Jaws was not made to be a blockbuster. Neither was Star Wars E.T Raiders CE3K and SL making the money it did was icing on the cake. 

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I know, i just don't like the endless parade of the same hit titles (surprise hit or not) as valid argument why (insert less-known title) are less good. Craftmanship-wise Williams  delivers in almost all of them, and Dracula arguably stems from his best period. The movie is another matter, though i certainly prefer it to some of the titles you listed.

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I should have added the Cowboys, the Towering Inferno and the River. And make no mistake I do believe Dracula is a lovely score but I don't even think it's as good as say the fury which I hate as a film but it is a fantastic score well. I'm probably one of the few who loves Missouri breaks

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Regarding Goldsmith, a Top 10 list on the internet by any user tends to be quite interesting. But regarding Williams, it's always the same 10 titles:

 

Star Wars

Indiana Jones

Harry Potter

Jaws

Superman

Schindler's List

Home Alone

Jurassic Park

E.T.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

 

I'm not saying these scores are bad, that'd be insane, but 90% of all Top 10 rankings or whatever consist of these fucking 10 scores I mentioned and when it's a ranking on YouTube, they only play the main theme of these scores. The one that absolutely every last idiot knows. Although the concept of rankings is indeed quite pointless, these rankings say a lot about many people's knowledge about Williams' full potential. It is just dull. These 10 scores are the reason why Williams is so famous, but they're also the reason why many people have a very one-dimensional apprehension of his work. The negative of that list would probably be:

 

Sleepers

Presumed Innocent

Dracula

The Fury

Rosewood

War of the Worlds

The Witches of Eastwick

The Lost World

A.I.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (yes, again)

 

To be honest, I prefer the latter overall.

 

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2 hours ago, JoeinAR said:

I should have added the Cowboys, the Towering Inferno and the River. And make no mistake I do believe Dracula is a lovely score but I don't even think it's as good as say the fury which I hate as a film but it is a fantastic score well. I'm probably one of the few who loves Missouri breaks

 

2 hours ago, Jay said:

I love the Missouri Breaks!

 

I've loved THE MISSOURI BREAKS ever since I bought it on vinyl, in the Summer of '76. It was such a shock, after JAWS, but it alerted me to the sheer versitality of JW. Remember that in those days, there were no DVDs, or videos, to rewatch endlessly, no complete scores, and both MIDWAY and FAMILY PLOT OSTs wouldn't be released for donkeys years. Happy days!

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