Inside the Postal Bus: My Ride with Lance Armstrong and US Postal Cycling Team
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Portrait of a Family with a Fat Daughter
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Exile Hunter
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Beirut, 2023: When undercover intelligence officer Warren Linder agrees to lure an exiled opponent...
Gin: The Manual
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The Navy Lark: Volume 25: Avoiding Redundancy
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Deborah Willis and Barbara Krauthamer
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The Emancipation Proclamation is one of the most important documents in American history. As we...
Round the Horne: 17 Episodes of the Groundbreaking BBC Radio Comedy: 4: Complete Series
Kenneth Horne, Kenneth Williams and Barry Took
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Kenneth Horne, Kenneth Williams, Betty Marsden and Hugh Paddick star in 17 episodes of the anarchic...
Round the Horne: March 1965 - June 1965: Complete Series One
Marty Feldman, Kenneth Horne, Kenneth Williams and Barry Took
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Kenneth Horne, Kenneth Williams, Betty Marsden and Hugh Paddick star in 16 episodes of the anarchic...
The Handfasted Wife
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The DVD presents the episodes as three feature length chapters, as opposed to the six episodes as shown on the BBC.
The look of it all is superlative for the budget, and I would praise the production design, music and visual style above anything else. Claes Bang as Dracula is a revelation, at once funny and terrifying in just the right balance.
However, the adaptation, and attempt to update the story somewhat, doesn't always work. It begins very well indeed, the first hour being far more moody and of a high quality than I had expected. And then slowly, as it strays from the classic elements of the story into camp and unnecessary modernity it loses its bite!
The quality curve goes completely the wrong way, with all the best bits up front and the worst bits at the climax. Close, but nothing more than a disposable curiosity in the end.
Regardless, many thanks to Smashbomb for the giveaway! Appreciate it!