Great movie, shame about the music

The Kentucky-born film director Tod Browning joined a circus in the closing years of the 19th century. And he returned to the circus for the setting of his masterpiece, Freaks (1932), a moral tale of right against might, unforgettable for its depiction of a strand of human life that would, today, almost certainly have to be confined to the realm of documentary.

Freaks, however, was destined to fall foul of censorship. With his major achievement suppressed, Browning found his fame resting on Dracula (1931), a film that's probably most renowned for the looming presence of Bela Lugosi as the vampire count, impeccably turned-out, implacable in his aristocratic poise and self-belief, yet still camp enough to trigger that knowing laughter that seems so much a part of aficionados' enjoyment of the horror genre.

The pleasures of Dracula are many. There are those human-dwarfing sets that Hollywood was so fond of for much of its first half-century. There's the quietly arresting cinematography of Karl Freund, which sets a mood of strange timelessness, reinforced by the slow-paced dialogue, bringing us inexorably into a world where the controls of everyday life don't quite hold sway.

It was a real visual pleasure to encounter the film on a giant-seeming screen at the National Concert Hall. Seen so large, the definition changes, and sets which would look utterly implausible on TV come to look moodily apt. Less of a pleasure was the reproduction of the soundtrack. The NCH is not designed to handle amplified speech, and with an amplified live ensemble in competition, there were patches of dialogue which were quite simply incomprehensible.

And that live music, with the starry names of Philip Glass (both as composer and performer) and the Kronos Quartet, was more of an impediment to enjoyment than anything else. Glass has added a few new turns to his endless arpeggios and rocking bass lines. But the music still has the power to irritate. And the frequent visibility of the players through the darker images on the screen does nothing to enhance the enterprise. Interesting film, pity about the music.

Dracula continues at the NCH tonight at 8.30 p.m. Theatre Festival booking on 01-6772600 or on the festival's website at www.eircomtheatrefestival.com.

Theatre Festival reviews are available on-line at www.ireland.com.