Dracula and Jane Eyre

[Tony]

Just listened (in my car- perfect place) to Dracula and Jane Eyre. OW is pretty hokey ( as usual) as Dracula and as Seward, but George Colouris is spectacular (What a voice!); also Aggie Moorehead is REALLY good (of course); the great surprise is the music by Herrmann: spare, sparse, but VERY modern- just gorgeous, haunting, shimmering chords really... what a genius; I wish he'd done Macbeth, as OW had offered him, and also Shanghai...and...

As for Jane Eyre, OW's narration is as good as his movie Amberson narration (really!) but of course his Rochester is just as hokey as his movie portrayal; also, Herrmann's score is a surprise, as the repeated theme/figure is the SAME as The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, (which is itself used again, I believe, in his opera "Wuthering Heights"). He really was shameless at stealing from himself! I remember reading an interview from 1970, and when the interviewer pointed this fact out, Herrmann freaked, denied it, and got REALLY aggressive! What a crazy guy!