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Hi!
Thought I'd share some thoughts with all of you. While browsing Steve Hill's wonderful pages I came across an ad for Bela Lugosi's "DRACULA". As Steve points out, this ad is a reproduction of an original poster for the movie and is used by UNIVERSAL for the modern DVD edition. The ad also states that new music has been added to the soundtrack. It seems that the Director of this classic film (Lamaele) had no use for music scores, i.e. "FRANKENSTEIN". It doesn't appear like he was particularly interested in spicing up his pictures with alluring ladies either. The contrast, then, between Lamaele and Cooper ("KING KONG") is thunderous. It made me wonder what "DRACULA" and "FRANKENSTEIN" might have been like if they'd been directed by Cooper!
But getting back to the ad I mentioned, it surprised me to see how shoddy it was. So many things were wrong with it that it spurred me on to the task of "correcting" it. First of all the coloring was abysmal-- washed out and inappropriate. What is Dracula associated with? BLOOD, of course. Therefore RED should be prominent, especially in the lettering of the name. Certainly not pale blue! So I changed the coloring and also tried to give it some pizzazz. At least the composition (staging) was effective.
Well no, not quite. There was something else radically wrong-- the heroine. What a dud! As the audience we are supposed to wonder vicariously if the monster in turn has some other plans for his victim besides ultimately destroying her. With the "DRACULA" ad, however, I felt inclined to urge "Kill her and be done with it!" The remedy of course was a discreet showing of flesh and a more alluring hairdo.
Following, then, is a comparison between the original ad and how (for better or worse) I modified it. (I should've also tilted the girl's head back dramatically to quash all suspicion of her being inflatable).
José
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