Dracula

NBC is adding three new dramas to its 2013-14 lineup: "The Blacklist," "Ironside" and "Dracula. " "The Blacklist," which will air at 10 p.m. Mondays, stars James Spader, formerly of "Boston Legal," "The Practice" and "The Office. " The show is a crime drama and was one of the highest-testing pilots for any network this year. "Ironside" will air at 10 p.m. Wednesdays and stars another established actor, Blair Underwood. It's a remake of a 1970s detective drama, but there are murmurs that the fact that Underwood is 48 years old might make the show skew older, which isn't as appealing to advertisers.

NBC will be bringing "Dracula" to audiences Friday nights in the fall. Today the network put the official preview of the show online, just in advance of the Upfronts, the multi-network previews for media writers and television critics. "Dracula" has a number of things going for it, including actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers, a director from "The Tudors" and producers from "Downton Abbey. " There are fancy costumes, dramatic lighting and, if the trailer is any measure, a very gothy atmosphere.

Kenneth Turan was generous in his review of UCLA's staging of "Dracula" when he said ". . . there was clearly no time to get things aurally right for Royce [Hall], and that was a shame" ("Live Musical Accompaniment Drains 'Dracula' of Its Scariness," Nov. 1). "A shame" is a major understatement! The soundtrack was completely unintelligible. I was outraged at having spent $40 per ticket for a presentation lasting one hour and 15 minutes, and being unable to understand much of the film's dialogue.

NBC is adding three new dramas to its 2013-14 lineup: "The Blacklist," "Ironside" and "Dracula. " "The Blacklist," which will air at 10 p.m. Mondays, stars James Spader, formerly of "Boston Legal," "The Practice" and "The Office. " The show is a crime drama and was one of the highest-testing pilots for any network this year. "Ironside" will air at 10 p.m. Wednesdays and stars another established actor, Blair Underwood. It's a remake of a 1970s detective drama, but there are murmurs that the fact that Underwood is 48 years old might make the show skew older, which isn't as appealing to advertisers.

NBC will be bringing "Dracula" to audiences Friday nights in the fall. Today the network put the official preview of the show online, just in advance of the Upfronts, the multi-network previews for media writers and television critics. "Dracula" has a number of things going for it, including actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers, a director from "The Tudors" and producers from "Downton Abbey. " There are fancy costumes, dramatic lighting and, if the trailer is any measure, a very gothy atmosphere.

When Genndy Tartakovsky came aboard to direct "Hotel Transylvania," the computer-animated 3-D comedy about Dracula operating a resort for monsters, he brought something unique to the table: a decidedly old-fashioned aesthetic. Tartakovsky comes from a traditional 2-D animation background, having created the Cartoon Network shows "Dexter's Laboratory" and "Samurai Jack," and the Moscow-born director is an avowed film of the zany, cartoonish sensibility of animators like Chuck Jones and Tex Avery (both of whom worked on "Looney Tunes," among others)

I want to make some comments regarding Kenneth Turan's review, " 'Dracula': Letting the Blood Flow" (Nov. 13): First, I resent any movie reviewer who foists preconceived notions on a film. It seemed inevitable that Turan would dislike the film, what with worries about the purity of Francis Ford Coppola's motives in making "Dracula"--"What he wanted was the kind of hit that would enable him to get financing for one of those close-to-the-heart films"--and an obvious disgust for its cast.

When Mary Shelley wrote "Frankenstein" in 1816, she could not have conceived of the cultural landmark it would become. The novel still throws a long shadow across the popular imagination almost two centuries later. Boris Karloff's performance as the monster in Universal's 1931 film has become iconic, and his is merely one among dozens of adaptations and revisions to come: movies, plays, novels, comic books, even breakfast cereals (remember Franken Berry?). Which brings us to Dave Zeltserman's "Monster" (Overlook: 224 pp., $23.95)

Dracula The Un-Dead Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt Dutton: 424 pp., $26.95 The ending of Bram Stoker's "Dracula" (1897) has long troubled readers. Professor Abraham Van Helsing, the Dutch expert on the supernatural, repeatedly admonishes his band of hunters that to kill the vampire-king, they must "cut off his head and burn his heart or drive a stake through it." Furthermore, he warns, when the sun sets, Dracula has the power to transform himself into "elemental dust." With that in mind, what occurs after an extended chase from England to Dracula's castle in Transylvania is puzzling: As the sun sets, Jonathan Harker and Quincey Morris attack Dracula with steel knives, one "shear[ing]

Count Dracula, an affable antiques dealer living in a castle near Berlin, is being driven out of Germany--not with garlic, crucifixes or sunshine, but by neo-Nazi arsonists and intransigent local bureaucrats. The 60-year-old Berlin native, an adopted descendant of the Romanian royal family, has turned his famous name into a thriving restaurant, beer garden and antiques business in a rural hamlet south of Berlin.

When Genndy Tartakovsky came aboard to direct "Hotel Transylvania," the computer-animated 3-D comedy about Dracula operating a resort for monsters, he brought something unique to the table: a decidedly old-fashioned aesthetic. Tartakovsky comes from a traditional 2-D animation background, having created the Cartoon Network shows "Dexter's Laboratory" and "Samurai Jack," and the Moscow-born director is an avowed film of the zany, cartoonish sensibility of animators like Chuck Jones and Tex Avery (both of whom worked on "Looney Tunes," among others)

Time has not diminished the warm memories of those who worked on Francis Ford Coppola's horror-romance "Bram Stoker's Dracula. " "He steered the ship," said Michele Burke, who won an Oscar for her makeup and hair design, about her collaboration with the director most widely known for "The Godfather" trilogy. "It was like being in rarefied air in his company. " Burke and several members of the crew, who won Oscars for their evocative work on "Dracula" - makeup artists Greg Cannom and Matthew W. Mungle and special effects sound editors Tom C. McCarthy and David E. Stone - will discuss the production Thursday evening at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science's Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

When Mary Shelley wrote "Frankenstein" in 1816, she could not have conceived of the cultural landmark it would become. The novel still throws a long shadow across the popular imagination almost two centuries later. Boris Karloff's performance as the monster in Universal's 1931 film has become iconic, and his is merely one among dozens of adaptations and revisions to come: movies, plays, novels, comic books, even breakfast cereals (remember Franken Berry?). Which brings us to Dave Zeltserman's "Monster" (Overlook: 224 pp., $23.95)

Jonathan Rhys Meyers may have recently completed roles in "The Tudors" and "Albert Nobbs," but he's not ready to return to the 21st century yet. His latest role will return him to the 19th century to play the coolest vampire of them all, Dracula. On Tuesday, NBC announced the 10-episode series "Dracula," starring Rhys Meyers as the count, who travels to London in the 1890s. He poses as an American entrepreneur seeking to introduce modern technology to Victorian society, but in reality he's seeking revenge on the people who ruined his life centuries before.

Starz continues to expand its genre cred with two new series the cable network announced for development. The first is a science fiction action thriller from "Spartacus" creator Steven S. DeKnight and the other is a gothic horror thriller from "Babylon 5" creator J. Michael Stracynski. "Incursion," the series from DeKnight, is set in the middle of an intergalactic battle between humans and an alien race. Each season follows a squad of soldiers on a different planet as they continue the war. According to Starz, the series is expected to feature "grittily realistic combat" and "darkly complex characters.

Film can be an unstable environment - and not just in the executive suites. Take for example the 1973 Oscar-winning best film "The Sting,"which had chemical stains over several frames in the original negative. Steven Spielberg's landmark 1975 shark thriller "Jaws" showed the ravages of time with nasty tears in the original negative, notably the scene in which Quint (Robert Shaw) arrives at the town meeting on Amity Island. These are some of the challenges facing technicians performing digital restorations of 13 classic movies as part of Universal Studios' 100th birthday celebration.

It's gloomy and gray, and the rain is coming down in sheets. An ominous crash of low-rumbling thunder resounds outside. An even more ominous crash of indeterminate origin resounds within the Belasco Theater, where technical rehearsals for "Dracula, the Musical" are underway. The atmosphere on this mid-July day is grim and gothic, in keeping with the 1897 Bram Stoker novel on which the musical is based.

A scream echoes through the old house on the hill in Transylvania. A man in a black cape flies down the stairs. Outside a storm threatens. But even in Dracula's hometown, evil is not what it used to be. The man in black is Hans Bruno Frolich, a Lutheran priest. The shriek comes from his young daughter, playing upstairs in the parish house. And a few cobblestone streets away at the Club Dracula Internet Cafe, the only thing diabolical is the price of a drink.

Before Bela Lugosi played the title role in Tod Browning's 1931 vampire classic, "Dracula," he appeared in what 1929 film directed by Browning? "The Thirteenth Chair. "

Ingrid Pitt, who survived a Nazi concentration camp and dodged Communist police to become one of Britain's best-known horror stars, died Tuesday in London only days after her 73rd birthday. Her daughter, Steffanie Pitt, said her mother collapsed while on her way to a birthday dinner to be held in her honor over the weekend. The cause of death wasn't known, although Pitt had recently been in poor health. Known in Britain principally as the buxom bloodsucker in "Vampire Lovers" and "Countess Dracula," Ingrid Pitt began her acting career with a role in the 1968 action-adventure movie "Where Eagles Dare" that starred Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood.