happy birthday bram stoker

I have always liked scary movies, since I was a kid. My dad encouraged this enthusiasm, and would watch them with us, mostly on late-night television. The whole family got excited when Dracula starring Frank Langella came out in the movie theater. Finally, a scary movie on the big screen. My Anglophile mom was thrilled that Laurence Olivier was involved. My cousin Barbara was a huge Langella fan, and I quickly followed suit. Dracula was scary and sexy. My dad was probably a bit uncomfortable sitting through some of the love scenes with his kids a seat away, but we all survived.

A few days after watching the movie I saw a book with Frank Langella as the Count on the cover in Waldenbooks and begged my mom to buy it for me. I thought it would be a novelization, a way for me to relive what I had just seen on screen. But it was a repackaging of Bram Stoker's original novel, and I'm so grateful to the fabulously sexy Langella for helping to introduce me to this classic Gothic epistolary novel. It became one of my favorite books that summer. I still have it, although it's a bit worse for wear.

More than a little dog-eared, but still loved. The back cover included the phrase, "His love is eternal ... His embrace a throbbing dream."

A 24-page color insert!

I have read plenty of vampire stories since, by Anne Rice and many others (although I have not been tempted by Twilight), but none can compare to the original Stoker novel. Stoker never traveled to Transylvania, or anywhere near there. Maybe as the daughter of a newspaper man, I connected to a novel written by a reporter. Stoker was a theater critic and wrote for the London Daily Telegraph.

Before writing Dracula, Stoker met Ármin Vámbéry who was a Hungarian writer and traveler. Dracula likely emerged from Vámbéry's dark stories by Carpathian mountains. Stoker then spent several years researching European folklore and mythological stories of vampires. Dracula is an epistolary novel, written as a collection of realistic, but completely fictional, diary entries, telegrams, letters, ship's logs, and newspaper clippings, all of which added a level of detailed realism to his story, a skill he developed as a newspaper writer. — Wikipedia

I may have originally bought Bram Stoker's Dracula for the color photo insert of Langella & Co., but the book ended up making a huge and lasting impression on me. Reading Dracula led me to other horror writing, by authors like Sheridan Le Fanu, M. R. James, H.P. Lovecraft, Theodore Sturgeon, and Edgar Allan Poe. Thank you, Bram Stoker, for your indelible character of Count Dracula. A character who will undoubtedly continue to inspire countless versions in the future.

name dropper

In Frank Langella's new book, Dropped Names: Famous Men and Women As I Knew Them, the stage and screen actor does just that. The actor, who is perhaps best known for his sexy version of Count Dracula in Dracula and his recent turn as Richard Nixon in Frost/Nixon (he won a Tony for the play and was nominated for an Oscar for the film) has not only had a varied career, but spent it with some interesting and unexpected people.

Dropped Names has its share of bitchy moments — Langella doesn't like everyone he writes about (cough, cough, Lee Strasberg), but it's not a mean book. Because the majority of the subjects have passed on, it feels more like a series of tributes. As Langella is concentrating on his impressions of other people, it isn't strictly biography, either. Facts about his life and career as an actor can be pieced together from the disparate stories, but the book is (mostly) free of ego, which is remarkable for an actor's memoir.

In the role that made him a star, Dracula

Each chapter is in the order of the actor or entertainment figure's passing, so the chapters jump about a bit in chronology. This adds to the feeling of just sitting around with Langella and listening to him drop names, one story leading to another. It makes for an entertaining read, and as the author suggests in his preface, the reader could hop around the book, from subject to subject. There is a kaleidoscope effect at times, as certain profiles overlap, as if Langella, by focusing on a different person at the same event, is telling the same story from a slightly different perspective.

The gossip and anecdotes flow freely. The chapters that prove the most interesting are usually about people Langella knew well, such as his close friend Raul Julia. He includes a touching tribute to a fellow actor who started as a man-crush and then turned into a deep, loving friendship, "In this era when young male stars seem a sexless set of store-bought muscles set below interchangeable screw-top heads with faces of epic blandness — sheep trying to look like bulls — Raul defined real masculinity."

His chapter on Julia crosses over with ones on Jill Clayburgh and George C. Scott. The three actors were appearing in a play together in 1984, Noel Coward's Design for Living, directed by Scott. In quite a few instances Langella proves himself to be on the touchy side, as friendships flounder, "For a year or more afterward Jill and I stayed in contact ... But an incident so small and petty; a series of unreturned phone calls not worth the ink to explain, caused us to drift apart. I will forever regret the loss of those irretrievable years." We have all had similar experiences. You don't need to be a temperamental actor to throw a hissy fit that you regret later.

Al Hirschfeld's illustration of Jill Clayburgh, Raul Julia, and Langella in Design for Living

Sometimes he just hints at an actor's identity, as he does in a passage with George C. Scott, who shares his disdain for The Method. "I had worked recently with one star who was on the rise. A street-smart wise guy and Actors Studio devotee. I mentioned his name. 'An asshole,' said George, 'a talentless fucking asshole. The guy wouldn't know syntax if it came up and bit him. You need brains to be an actor.'" Most likely the actor, who the reader can have fun trying to guess his identity, is still alive, and Langella doesn't want to drop his particular name just yet.

Dropped Names can be best enjoyed if you have a love and knowledge of Old Hollywood and a passing knowledge of New York theater. Langella is as much of a fan of actors as his audience, which makes him especially endearing. He can be bitchy, too — frustrated with their egos, alcoholism, and tantrums. His glimpses into behind-the-scenes film and the theater convey how especially hard Hollywood can be on an older actor or actress:

Miss [Ida] Lupino's need was of no matter to our director and his producers. When I asked him why they had let her go, he said: "Oh she's brilliant, but we just don't have time for her." 

It is generally true in my profession that a faulty camera or an incorrect prop will often be given more attention and time than a worthy actor in need. And also true that idiot actors who come on the set stoned or drunk with petty or moronic demands are far more indulged than ones who calmly ask intelligent questions. Management likes to feel superior to actors and Miss Lupino's searching mind was clearly intimidating to them.

He also gives a knowing peek into Hollywood filmmaking at its most excessive:

Cutthroat Island … remains, in my film experience, the single most egregious example of excess I have ever witnessed in the movie world. Writers being paid $100,000 a week to punch up horrible dialogue with inane jokes, private cooks serving gourmet food to the Harlins under a cozy tent while hundreds of extras being paid less than minimum-wage stood in the freezing rain for hours ...

As Richard Nixon in Frost/Nixon

And that was just for starters. Langella is most amusing about his own perceived failures. About a film called The Wrath of God, which co-starred film legends Robert Mitchum and Rita Hayworth, he says, "The worst is my performance, terrible dialogue, and a horse who hated me." He did enjoy the deadpan cool and wit of Robert Mitchum, "Get out your pencil, Frank, and take this down. Herewith a list of the ten dullest actors in Hollywood. They are: Gregory Peck." I have to say I agree with Mitch 100% on that one. Langella also managed a brief liaison with Hayworth, who was in the early stages of Alzheimers, although he didn't know it at the time.

Movie buffs will be interested to hear about his close encounters with Elizabeth Taylor, Laurence Olivier, Tony Curtis, etc. Some of his interactions are not much more than fan encounters, which is refreshing. What may be surprising to some is how he came in close proximity to Jackie O and her friends, the wealthy high society family the Mellons, through a youthful theater apprenticeship and friendship with Bunny Mellon's daughter Liza. This opened up an entire lifestyle, and even a brief relationship with the former First Lady.

Langella is not afraid to name names — as long as the subject is deceased. But after reading Dropped Names it's impossible not to wonder how many more stories he could tell, if he included people who are still living.

sympathy for the devil

When I was just a kid the United States went through its biggest political scandal, Watergate. As Sam Rockwell's James Reston, Jr. reminds the audience at the end of the film Frost/Nixon, the -gate suffix has been added to every scandal since.

My dad, who at the time was the political reporter/Trenton correspondent for the south Jersey newspaper The Daily Observer, was glued to the television throughout the Watergate Hearings, taking copious notes. It was summertime, when my brother and I and even my mom would spend most of our waking hours running around outside, but I remember each of us coming in periodically to check on him, to see if anything had "happened" on T.V. His obsession, the country's obsession, became the whole family's.



As I watched Frost/Nixon the other night I was amazed by Frank Langella's performance. The play and the players are so great that it is hard to judge it critically as a film. I'm usually not a huge fan of Ron Howard's work, but I was riveted. Rockwell seemed at first a bit too cardboard in his one-note outrage. A lot of his early dialogue was expository. But someone had to be the one to provide context, to express the anger and despair at the time of the tarnishing of the Oval Office. We take politics and dirty tricks to be such par for the course these days that it's hard to imagine what it must have felt like at the time to be shocked that a presidential campaign would resort to payoffs and crooked measures to secure an election.

But in the 1970s everyone was shocked. Or, if not completely surprised, at least extremely upset at the illegal lengths an incumbent president might go to win the Presidency. While my dad took notes from the television, my mom, an artist, sketched the trial participants. Her doodles became political cartoons. My dad, although absorbed in the hearings, was not completely oblivious to what was happening around him. When he saw my mother's cartoons he showed them to his boss at the Observer, which led to her doing a few cartoons for the paper, and also doing a caricature portrait of my dad, which would run from that point on with his column.

I didn't understand everything that was going on at the time. I didn't even realize at first that Watergate was a place. But the message was clear. The President of the United States was involved in a crime. With burglars. It was like some distortion of the villains found in the cartoons my brother and I would watch on Saturday mornings. Also clear was that Nixon probably wouldn't be the President much longer. That was really hard for a kid to understand, to accept. Although I expect the grown-ups were having trouble with it, too. Neither my mom nor my dad were Republicans, but they had voted for Nixon in 1972. Maybe the fact that they had crossed party lines made the betrayal a bit more intense for them.




In Frost/Nixon Frank Langella was beyond convincing as Nixon. If I looked away from the screen or closed my eyes, I heard the former president's voice. It was uncanny, and brought me right back to our living room—with a big box-shaped television, gold pile wall-to-wall carpet, and all the windows and doors open on a hot August day while a single oscillating fan tried and failed to cool the room. Langella also lived through that time, which may have aided his effortlessly capturing Nixon and the era. The timbre of his voice was even a bit like my dad's. Did men enunciate more clearly in the seventies and have gravely, baritone voices? Maybe it was all the cigarettes. Most of all, Langella made me feel sympathetic for a man that was a distant figurehead, an unreal wax figure, and made him real. I can't condone what Nixon did, but I can pity Langella's portrayal of Nixon's desperation that led him to make his fatal choices. I don't feel that way for people like Rumsfeld or Cheney. Somehow the crimes of the "father" seem much less today than those of his disciples.

What happened in the Watergate on June 17, 1972 changed the country. Would such a crime have even been noticed today, with all of the other competing worldwide scandals? Would the public have cared as much? Everywhere you look on the internet you see coverage of Wikileaks, which is sort of today's anti-Watergate. But is anyone really reading all the stories? Or about the scandals attached to Julian Assange? The world has changed so much since 1972.

One of my all-time favorite movies is All the President's Men. It's impossible not to get caught up in its dramatic force and its mystery, sometimes forgetting that what you are watching unfold is based on real events. It is a great film—a history, a thriller, an in-depth depiction of the hard work that went into tracking down a newspaper story. In this case, the biggest scoop of all time. Possibly the last one. Watching Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as Woodward and Bernstein is nostalgic and a little bit tragic. The two reporters are relentless and rigorous in their pursuit of the facts. They understand the impossibility of what they are up against, a powerful administration that is willing to go far—but they aren't sure how far—to preserve its power base. There may still be journalists who put the facts above everything else, who risk their lives to get a story, but the state of journalism and print is ... well there really is not much of a state. Print is practically dead, and fact-checking, hell, spell-checking seems to be a thing of the past. My father would be appalled at what passes for political journalism today. I would never want to go backwards, but it is a simple fact that if there was another Watergate tomorrow, there is simply not another Woodward and Bernstein around to track it down, much less a Redford and Hoffman to play them in the movie.




All the President's Men has the outrage, the moral indignation of Rockwell's introductory rant in Frost/Nixon. The president is just a shadow figure in the 70s conspiracy drama. We are only shown him briefly, in television news bits. Howard's film and the years have mellowed how I think about Richard Nixon. It's hard to picture him as Tricky Dick, after seeing him envy David Frost for his ease of talking to people at parties. Langella shows us Nixon's fragile side. He makes me have sympathy for the devil.

a funny thing ...

My mom's memory continues to slip, tiny bit by bit, but with no discernible pattern. Some days it feels like there is only the worst to look forward to. Some days seem fine. One saving grace, at least for the present, is that no matter how hard it can be for her to communicate at times—the right word seems harder and harder to come by—she still enjoys reading and watching movies. And of course watching her adorable granddaughter.

I come from a family of movie buffs. My mom and dad had special nicknames for favorite actors. They always talked about movies particularly—how a certain movie at a certain time in their lives meant something. My brother and I would watch movies with them, mostly on television. From a young age we would also get to go out to the movies on rare occasions, to see something special.




Some of the movies we all trooped together to see made a lasting impression. Young Frankenstein is still my favorite Mel Brooks film, even though I was too young to get the dirty joke/punchline. I think I could probably quote it from beginning to end. 2001: A Space Odyssey bored the whole family to tears, and we are all sci-fi geeks. But shared misery can be a bonding experience. Star Wars thrilled us all and was the first movie we all saw together more than once. Life of Brian was controversial at the time it was released (sacreligious!), but my newspaperman dad wasn't going to let anyone censor his family seeing Monty Python or anything, for that matter. The Sting and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid we saw in the space of one week, while they were playing at the local drive-in. Robert Redford was probably the first movie actor I fell in love with that was in a current movie, and not someone from one of the old B&W ones my mom loved that we would see on television, like Tyrone Power or Robert Taylor. Another of my first loves was Frank Langella. We all went to see him in Dracula, as we liked scary movies as much as sci-fi—Langella was very sexy—sort of weird to see with mom and dad. Dad bought me the Bram Stoker novel with Langella on the cover, maybe to get me to read it, or get back to to the source. I was just thrilled at first to get to relive some of the movie's scenes, but then got caught up in the late 19th century epistolary writing style, so maybe dad was onto something. I think I may still have it somewhere ...





I remember when my mom and dad both got so excited about The Godfather coming out. They had both read the book from the library, taking turns, while trying to keep it away from us, from the racy and violent parts. When the movie came out my brother and I had to stay with our grandma while mom and dad drove to NY to see it on a big screen. Maybe my dad had some sort of press pass. Or maybe they just wanted a big night out in the city. My brother and I were so jealous, but we got from them that movies can be special.

I grew up with a B&W television until I was in my teens. One of my fondest childhood memories was when the Wizard of Oz was playing at the local movie theater and my mom insisted on us going to see it. My brother and I had already seen it on television, so we didn't know what the big deal was. We walked downtown with mom who made sure we got good seats. It was fun seeing Dorothy on such a huge screen, and I always liked going to the movies, but I didn't get it until ... She opened the door to technicolor Munchkinland. My brother and I both screamed. I looked at my mom and she just smiled. She had saved that surprise, that bit of movie magic, for us all those years.

So it is extremely gratifying to me that we can sit together in the evening on occasion and still watch movies together. I can see with some of the more recent films that she is losing the plot a bit. But if I put on an old movie, it's like magic. She's much more into the story and excited at seeing the old familiar faces of actors and actresses. I might have to supply the names, but she knows exactly who they all are, sometimes much better than I do. That happened the other night when I was flipping past channels and found Zero Mostel singing the opening number, "Comedy Tonight" in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. I had seen the movie years ago, actually probably late one night on television with my dad. I didn't really remember it much, so it was fun to rediscover it with her.

The same thing happened again on a recent Sunday afternoon when we all watched The Pirate. My mom thought she hadn't seen it before (who knows?), but no matter. She loves Judy Garland and Gene Kelly, the kid got to dance along to Dorothy and that guy who tap dances on roller skates, and I got to see Gene Kelly dance in shorts, so it was a win-win-win.

I've always liked old movies, but I think I am going to like them even more now.

button, button ...

Your home is a box. Your car is a box on wheels. You drive to work in it. You drive home in it. You sit in your home, staring into a box. It erodes your soul, while the box that is your body inevitably withers ... then dies. Where upon it is placed in the ultimate box, to slowly decompose.—Frank Langella, in The Box

The Box isn't a great movie. I'm not even sure if it's a good one. But it sure held my attention. It was enthralling. Maybe it was the performances by Langella, Cameron Diaz and one of my favorite actors, James Marsden. Or maybe it was the out-of-this-world set design. I was a child in the seventies, but I never saw patterns like the ones on Diaz's and Marsden's walls and upholstery—but I have to admit I loved them in this movie and found them as intriguing as the convoluted plot. The crazy plot can be blamed on famous sci-fi writer Richard Matheson, best known for I Am Legend, Hell House and Nightmare at 20,00 Feet. The whole film does have an extended Twilight Zone episode feel to it. It doesn't quite successfully pull together the disparate themes of (possible) alien intervention, religion (is Langella a god or a devil?), or existentialism (Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit is an oft-referenced subtext.)

I have an offer to make. If you push the button, two things will happen. First, someone, somewhere in the world, whom you don't know, will die. Second, you will receive a payment of one million dollars. You have 24 hours.—Frank Langella, in The Box

But mostly I keep going back to the visuals. Some of the film's scenes have the color and tone of an old Kodachrome print. That crazy wallpaper. The scene at the school where Cameron Diaz is challenged by a creepy student. Gigantic rectangular shapes of water. Arcade Fire's creepy-beautiful score.

I had to laugh at a scene that was full of danger and suspense, but also humor (It's a Christmas movie!)—a waving Santa Claus (creepier than any clown, and we all know how creepy clowns are) blocks the hero's progress in the middle of a road, causing the car to crash. I remembered at that moment that the film was directed by Donnie Darko's Richard Kelly.

Where can I get that wallpaper?Sometimes a movie can be scary and funny and not make any sense and you can still enjoy it. It may never be on the "greatest movies" [arbitrary] list, but it's still worth watching. If movies weren't so g-d expensive we wouldn't have such high expectations, be so hard on them. I guess because it's getting rarer and rarer for me to rush out and see a movie first-run (I'll make an exception for Harry Potter, of course) I can be a little more open-minded. I've only invested a DVD rental or my monthly cable bill at most to see it, and not a six dollar soda and 12 dollar popcorn and parking, etc., etc. So I didn't think The Box "owed me" anything. Not even, as Dr. Evil might say, "One Meeelllyun dollars!") I just found it interesting. Interesting enough to recommend. Maybe even interesting enough to see when it rolls by again on cable, if I'm in the mood for a puzzler. And great set design.

Film is ephemeral. It's a shame that it is so industry- and profit-based. Taking a quick glance at the box office receipts on Wikipedia it seems that The Box cost about $30 million dollars to make. It made its money back and then some. The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus cost the same amount of money to make. It also made its money back, but like The Box, not from its U.S. release, but predominantly from receipts outside North America. But both movies, I'm sure, are considered by Hollywood to be flops. I love movies, but this way of thinking sucks.

Anyway, check out The Box—not the greatest movie you'll ever watch—intriguing, interesting, and original. How's that for a conundrum/recommendation?

scary monsters and super creeps

This is the time of year to indulge in scary movies, but which ones? There are so many, of all shapes and sizes it was hard to know where to start. I've thought that it might be fun to watch a film per classic movie monster—a sort of tribute to what used to keep me up late when I first discovered horror movies as a kid. Of course Halloween can be funny and fun, too, not just scary. I started watching some of these but my list has got longer and longer ...




Vamp out. When (grown-up) people think of vampires, Count Dracula usually comes immediately to mind, and not some shimmery teenagers from the Northwestern U.S. But which Count? Bela Lugosi was classic, but I'm not in the mood for a B&W barely-talkie. Frank Langella was beyond sexy. I admit it, I'm tempted. Gary Oldman was so over the top I'm afraid my movie marathon might get exhausted before it gets started. As much as I love Angel, I decided what I'd really like to see was Buffy vs, Dracula, with Xander quipping his way through his horror at how easily he became the next Renfield.




The Lycanthrope. There were  a lot of fun werewolves to chose from. Again, Universal horror offers up a classic, with Lon Chaney Jr. as the man who bays at the moon and the gypsies who love him. I remember being creeped out and fascinated by Albert Finney in Wolfen (and he was the good guy). Our local library has the complete She-Wolf of London television series. Admittedly cheesy, but I used to love to catch this series about a young female college student who gets bit by the wrong kind of dog and then becomes a sort of monster/superhero. But my first impulse in this genre is An American Werewolf in London, with David Naughton as the unfortunate title character and Griffin Dunne as his rapidly decomposing friend. I loved this movie when it first came out and watched it more than once in the theater, but haven't seen it in ages. It was hip and post-modern and referential. I may have to watch it and the T.V. show. This one may be a double-header.




I want my Mummy. This one was a no-brainer for me. It's The Mummy with Brendan Fraser and all the other cool guys, The Mummy all the way. Too. Much. Fun.




"It's Fronk-en-steen." Also an easy choice, Young Frankenstein is not only one of my very favorite movies, which I'm not afraid to admit that I can practically quote word-for-word, but it is still funny as hell. There are too many great moments to reference, but darts, neighing horses, rolling in the hay, and "putting on the Ritz" come immediately to mind.




Day of the Dead. I'm not a big fan of zombie movies. I guess because the idea of them really creep me out way more than the other monsters. My daughter was little when the recent crop of well-reviewed zombie movies came out—little enough for me to use her as an excuse to skip them in the theater (I told you, they creep me out!) so I'm going with the ultimate, the classic, Night of the Living Dead. It doesn't get much more scary or relentless than this. At least for me. And I think I can bring myself to watch it, with the lights on. I'll let you know what I think about Zombieland when I catch up.




It came from outer space. I know October is almost over, but this may have to be a double-header, too. There is nothing scarier than what happens to one of my favorite actors, John Hurt, in Alien, and female heroes have been trying to catch up to Sigourney Weaver ever since. On a more humorous side, Men in Black is a lot of fun, and the kid might actually be able to watch ... oh, Vincent D'Onfrio. Well, maybe not, but it's still a fun film, and this is MY list, anyway.




Ghost of a chance. I think Poltergeist is the way to go. It's not a perfect movie (I hate the guy in the bathroom scene), but it has such an easy relaxed vibe between Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams as the two parents, that once it starts, you really don't want it to stop. There are other great ghost movies to choose from, especially if you're in a more classic ghost story mood: The Haunting, The Others, The Frighteners and the wonderful The Innocents, with Deborah Kerr, based on Henry James's The Turn of the Screw.




A little Depp'll do ya.  Finally, in a category all by himself, is Johnny Depp, who is drawn to all sorts of crazy and offbeat films—some of them quite monstrous. I personally would skip Sweeney Todd—once was enough, but to each his own. And there are so many others to choose from. Sleepy Hollow, if you're not put off by my Sweeney Todd warning and want to keep the decapitation theme going. If you're feeling ghostly, Pirates of the Caribbean is a good bet. There's nothing creepier than his portrayal of Willy Wonka. From Hell is actually quite a good film about real-life monster Jack the Ripper. But my Depp pick would be Ed Wood, hands down—the lovely and loving portrait of the world's worst auteur. It brings together so many of these classic monsters—creatures from lagoons, outer space, West Los Angeles—even Bela Lugosi himself.

This list of movies has kept things spooky and ooky around here and looks to continue to do so pretty much through Thanksgiving.

Happy Halloween!