I know this is "The Classic" version of Dracula. I know it was made decades ago. I'm well aware I'm gonna be accursed of blasphemy for this. I know people were easier to scare then. Oh well, might as well get on with it.<br /><br />The Bela Lugosi version of Dracula was so inaccurate to the book that I actually had trouble following the story. The Francis Ford Coppola version was much closer to the book.<br /><br />BOOK; first few chapters are about Johnathan Harker's travels to and stay in Transylvania. Renfield already in madhouse by start of movie.<br /><br />MOVIE; Harker never leaves England, Renfield goes instead.<br /><br />BOOK; Madness seems to fluctuate. Sometimes he seems normal, sometimes he's even a philosopher, but once he bit Dr. Stewart's arm, screaming, "Blood is the life! Blood is the life!" But most of the time, either eating life things or catching flies, spiders and birds so that he can feed them to each other and later eat them. <br /><br />MOVIE; You don't see him acting sane much. <br /><br />(In an odd way, although it never happened in the book, the scene in the Mel Brooks version with Stewart and Renfield in the garden gives a much better example of Renield's frequent fluctuation between sanity and insanity.)<br /><br />BOOK; Dracula is described as an old man with werewolf-like features, glowing red eyes and a mustache, and gets younger as he drinks blood.<br /><br />MOVIE; Not even close. And, although fangs are alluded to, you never see them.<br /><br />BOOK; Dracula only ever converses directly with Harker. (Although he also yells something at Van Helsing)Preys on Lucy only when asleep and/or sleepwalking. Main characters spend most of their time hunting down Dracula and Lucy. <br /><br />MOVIE; Dracula meets and converse with main characters at opera and later at Lucy's house. (In fact, this seems to mostly be all that happens in the movie.)<br /><br />BOOK; If you've seen any version of Dracula you'll be well aware of the scene with Harker and Dracula's three brides. As well as a child in a sack. (Note to MATRIX fans; watch "Bram Stoker's Dracula again, you may find it interesting that Neo and Persephone have "met") <br /><br />MOVIE; This happens to Renfield, but nothing interesting happens.<br /><br />BOOK; Dracula's arrival in England is very similar to Eddie Murphy's arrival in New Yourk in "A Vampire in Brooklyn"; a ship with a dead crew crash-lands on the beach, with a cargo full of boxes full of clay, and a wolf jumps out. <br /><br />MOVIE; Doesn't seem to happen. And only seems to assume the form of a bat.<br /><br />BOOK; main characters chase Dracula all the way back to Transylvania<br /><br />MOVIE; doesn't happen.<br /><br />MOVIE; He uses hypnosis on various servants.<br /><br />BOOK; Well, why the hell not? He does, possibly, have some power over Lucy, she seems to sleepwalk exactly where Dracula wants her to.<br /><br />Other problems with the movie;<br /><br />-Seems to be all talking, almost no action. <br /><br />-Never see Dracula's fangs.<br /><br />-Extremely limited by early censorship <br /><br />-Armadillos?