There actually is one pretty faithful and lovely Dracula adaptation - I think people understandably don't look back this far, but it's the BBC 1977 Count Dracula. It was a big one-off 'event' TV for Christmas that year, so it's not a full on accurate-to-the-last-word serial of the kind they normally did back in the day, but in compensation it's about as big budget as the 70s Beeb ever got and it really is still very watchable. (I may be a hardened old TV watcher, but even I don't usually just want it never to stop, and that was my reaction to this both times I've watched it.)
It should be around by various means, but if you can't find it, it's up on YT in full - just type in Count Dracula 1977.
I actually started with a random adaptation rather than the book, so while it'd be great if the modern BBC would do a full-on serial for it (the only way we're ever going to get that level of everything), I really enjoy all the Dracula remixes I've seen so far. They all have their own charms & are frequently in conversation with each other & even sometimes the book (lol) - the 1931 is basically the play version filmed for posterity, Hammer is doing its own thing, but it has Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing and doesn't really need anything more, the ITV 1968 is only for the hardened old TV afficionado (hello GUESS which one I started with? XD) but the scriptwriter knew the book, knew the other adaptations and other vampire stories like Carmilla, so it's very intertextual, riffing on the 1931 film visually, Hammer's ending and throwing down the gauntlet to Hammer, while putting all the queer back into the narrative, then you have the lovely much more book-accurate 1977 BBC film (although it does pause to give a visual nod to Hammer and Lee in passing), Bram Stoker's Dracula, which despite some annoying things, weirdly does also riff on the ITV 1968, of all unlikely sources. There's another one-off TV CHristmas special which is SO pretty and has the perfect casting but decides to waste all its time on an Arthur has syphillis plot (don't ask), but it had some very interesting takes in the rest of it, and riffed on the 1977 at some points too. (I'm most frustrated with this one. It would never have been 100% faithful by any means, but it could have been one of the best of the remixes! They have the most book-like Mina and Jonathan casting to my mind. I keep rewatching it in the hopes it will transmute into gold, but alas! EVery time I try, they still cast David Suchet as Van Helsing and then literally lock him up in a cupboard until the last five minutes, which is high my list of most inexplicable adaptation choices of all time.)
--> Drac 2006 Jonathan & Mina:
And there are still loads more I haven't yet managed to get hold of! I think someone will do a more faithful one eventually, but it may need a collective memory wipe of Christopher Lee first and we can't wish that on ourselves too soon.
Anne is such a weird one, though. It's so popular - you'd think someone would have done more of it by now!
Also re. Mansfield Park, this one does depend, but I am getting fonder and fonder of the Beeb 1980s one, I have to say. It is satisfactorily faithful, though, with a good cast, and its faults are the usual old time beeb ones (people aged up or down a la the theatre, pacing etc), so it depends on people's tolerance for that, of course. It is disappointing that they never really seriously tried even during the big Austen phase everyone went through for a while, though. The 2005 wasn't anything to write home about, the 1999 is an interesting film that I kind of like as its own thing, but it is a terrible adaptation.
Continuing my contrary determination to like versions of these unadaptable/not adapted well books, I watched the 1998 (? I think) ITV Wuthering Heights this year and I'm not entirely sure how I felt about their Heathcliff (not that he was bad or anything, but just: hmmmm, is he my idea of him? probably not???) and with the caveat that it has been a hundred years since I read it, so I may have missed some crimes, it seemed to me that it got it and included everything I rememered and had a very young Matthew Macfadyen as Hareton, Peter Davison as Lockwood, and Orla Brady as Cathy.
Personally, though, I'm still sulking that Andrew Davies never tried to do The Mysteries of Udolpho. I think he could have had so much more fun with it than whatever it was he was trying to do with Sanditon. (BBC Radio had my back, but blew it, which is unusual for them.) But there's not even a terrible film version! Whhhhyy? (Is it the 250 page travelogue? Does it put everyone off? lol)
On that line, I think The Castle of Otranto might well be unadaptable, but. If someone tried, I would be there with popcorn. XD
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It should be around by various means, but if you can't find it, it's up on YT in full - just type in Count Dracula 1977.
I actually started with a random adaptation rather than the book, so while it'd be great if the modern BBC would do a full-on serial for it (the only way we're ever going to get that level of everything), I really enjoy all the Dracula remixes I've seen so far. They all have their own charms & are frequently in conversation with each other & even sometimes the book (lol) - the 1931 is basically the play version filmed for posterity, Hammer is doing its own thing, but it has Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing and doesn't really need anything more, the ITV 1968 is only for the hardened old TV afficionado (hello GUESS which one I started with? XD) but the scriptwriter knew the book, knew the other adaptations and other vampire stories like Carmilla, so it's very intertextual, riffing on the 1931 film visually, Hammer's ending and throwing down the gauntlet to Hammer, while putting all the queer back into the narrative, then you have the lovely much more book-accurate 1977 BBC film (although it does pause to give a visual nod to Hammer and Lee in passing), Bram Stoker's Dracula, which despite some annoying things, weirdly does also riff on the ITV 1968, of all unlikely sources. There's another one-off TV CHristmas special which is SO pretty and has the perfect casting but decides to waste all its time on an Arthur has syphillis plot (don't ask), but it had some very interesting takes in the rest of it, and riffed on the 1977 at some points too. (I'm most frustrated with this one. It would never have been 100% faithful by any means, but it could have been one of the best of the remixes! They have the most book-like Mina and Jonathan casting to my mind. I keep rewatching it in the hopes it will transmute into gold, but alas! EVery time I try, they still cast David Suchet as Van Helsing and then literally lock him up in a cupboard until the last five minutes, which is high my list of most inexplicable adaptation choices of all time.)
--> Drac 2006 Jonathan & Mina:
And there are still loads more I haven't yet managed to get hold of! I think someone will do a more faithful one eventually, but it may need a collective memory wipe of Christopher Lee first and we can't wish that on ourselves too soon.
Anne is such a weird one, though. It's so popular - you'd think someone would have done more of it by now!
Also re. Mansfield Park, this one does depend, but I am getting fonder and fonder of the Beeb 1980s one, I have to say. It is satisfactorily faithful, though, with a good cast, and its faults are the usual old time beeb ones (people aged up or down a la the theatre, pacing etc), so it depends on people's tolerance for that, of course. It is disappointing that they never really seriously tried even during the big Austen phase everyone went through for a while, though. The 2005 wasn't anything to write home about, the 1999 is an interesting film that I kind of like as its own thing, but it is a terrible adaptation.
Continuing my contrary determination to like versions of these unadaptable/not adapted well books, I watched the 1998 (? I think) ITV Wuthering Heights this year and I'm not entirely sure how I felt about their Heathcliff (not that he was bad or anything, but just: hmmmm, is he my idea of him? probably not???) and with the caveat that it has been a hundred years since I read it, so I may have missed some crimes, it seemed to me that it got it and included everything I rememered and had a very young Matthew Macfadyen as Hareton, Peter Davison as Lockwood, and Orla Brady as Cathy.
Personally, though, I'm still sulking that Andrew Davies never tried to do The Mysteries of Udolpho. I think he could have had so much more fun with it than whatever it was he was trying to do with Sanditon. (BBC Radio had my back, but blew it, which is unusual for them.) But there's not even a terrible film version! Whhhhyy? (Is it the 250 page travelogue? Does it put everyone off? lol)
On that line, I think The Castle of Otranto might well be unadaptable, but. If someone tried, I would be there with popcorn. XD