In 1979, Universal Studios and producer Walter Mirisch, going from the massive success of the revival of Dracula on Broadway, with Frank Langella as the Count, committed themselves to a big budget, opulent, version of both the play and the novel. From that came a beautiful, wonderfully presented and acted Gothic horror-romance.
In LITTLE SHOPPE OF HORRORS #36, we present an in-depth study of how the play came about that lead to the film. And a complete production history of the filming.
Spearheading this is filmmaker and historian Constantine Nasr, who has gone way above and beyond to assemble a fascinating history of play and movie. He has interviewed:
** The Play **
- John Wulp (Producer)
- Alan Coates (Jonathan Harker)
** The Film **
- Walter Mirisch (Producer)
- John Badham (Director, who has also opened up his personal scrapbooks to us)
- W.D. (Rick) Richter (Screenwriter, who let us borrow his hand written scripts and script notes/production meeting with Mirisch and Badham).
- Frank Langella (Dracula)
- John Bloom (Film Editor)
- Ian Lewis (Head of Universal/UK)
- Hugh Harlow (Production Manager)
- Peter Robb-King (Head Makeup)
- Simon Murton (Son of production designer, Peter Murton)
- Peter Young (set dresser)
- Gil Taylor (Director of Photography-rare archive interview)
- Bill Taylor (Assistant to Matte Designer, Albert Whitlock)
PLUS Stand alone interviews with
"Trevor Eve" (Jonathan Harker)
"Jan Francis" (Mina)
"John Williams" (Music Composer)
"Contributions from:"
Laurent Bouzereau, Bruce G. Hallenbeck, Sam Irvin, Dennis Lynch, Michael Augustine Reed, Gary D. Rhodes, Kevin Shinnick and Markus Wallasvaara.