It's the late 1950's.The last serious appearance of Universal's Dracula was in House of Dracula in 1945. The last appearance all together of him was in Universal's Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein.
After that, Dracula was off the radar- for the most part- until Hammer Studios revived the series.
Unlike the Universal film, which was based on a stage play based on Bram Stoker's novel, Hammer went straight to the novel... and started cutting.
It's still the same basic story, Van Helsing, Mina, Harker, Dracula- this time it's in Technicolor.
Vivid, red, Technicolor.
And there's liberties- the entire story is set on the European continent; there's no voyage to England here. Relationships are different. Harker is engaged to Lucy, Lucy is Holmwood's sister, Mina is Holmwood's wife. Van Helsing is still Van Helsing and Dracula is still Dracula.
But what a Dracula this is. While Lugosi was Eurosuave, Christopher Lee's Dracula was upperclass-cruel-sexy- playing the Count ten times in his career.
It's interesting how Lee's had a comeback of sorts in the last few years- despite the fact that he never really went away. As Count Dooku in the Star Wars prequels and Saruman in the Lord of the Rings movies, in Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Corpse Bride, Lee's getting a whole new generation of fans.
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