When I first saw the Coppola adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula in the cinema as a (precociously gothic?) twelve year old in 1992, it made a memorable impression. I remembered one scene in particular well enough to notice that it was abbreviated in subsequent home video releases. It is a crucial scene early in the film: London solicitor Jonathan Harker (played by Keanu Reeves) has just arrived at the castle of Count Dracula (played by Gary Oldman). They sit together over Harker’s late dinner. The conversation takes a dangerous turn when Harker responds lightly to a story about the Count’s ancestors.
Dracula draws a sword and exclaims, “It is no laughing matter. We Draculas have a right to be proud. What devil or witch was ever so great as Attila, whose blood flows in these veins?” Here he relents. “Blood is too precious a thing in these times. The warlike days are over. The victories of my great race are but a tale to be told. I am the last of my kind.”
Harker stands and apologizes: “I have offended you with my ignorance, Count. Forgive me.” If you watch the film on video the scene ends here, rather awkwardly. But in the original screenings it continued.
Dracula realizes that he has alarmed his visitor. He says, “Forgive me, my young friend, I am unaccustomed to guests and my heart grows weary with many years of mourning over the dead.” On video the scene transitions with a dissolve at the moment Dracula appears to speak (see the 3:35 minute mark here).
The missing dialogue I think obviously improves the scene: it gives us deeper insight into Dracula, it resolves a conflict that is otherwise left hanging, and it puts Harker somewhat at his ease before plunging him back into danger.
After years of seeing the complete scene truncated in both “Theatrical” and “Extended” cuts on DVD, and omitted from deleted footage reels, I finally found the missing thirty seconds (see the 12:54 minute mark here). Interestingly the scene runs longer than it did in the original theatrical cut. Dracula bids Harker “Drink….drink” and leaves the room. Both the theatrical and video edits seem to have been made to avoid Dracula’s departure since the next scene finds Harker and the Count sitting together again in another room.
All of this goes to show that the original instincts of Coppola and the film editors was correct and the scene played best in the 1992 cut.
See also: The Art of Dracula 92.
Nick Louras 