Saturday is Halloween and not much fun this year. Costumes and decorations and parties aren't much fun when you are sequestered. Paula and I watched "The Return of Dracula" (1958). This is a "B" movie on YouTube which wouldn't hurt a fly. It has a couple of main themes. The first is how wonderful it is to live in America (They mean, of course, the United States.) The second theme is the usual teenagers in love and the third is how wonderful Christianity is. The movie has a non-denominational Catholic priest named "Doctor." We are reminded often of how important it is to wear a "cross" around our neck when there are vampires about.
The plot itself follows the general form of the Dracula movie of 1931 I believe. Dracula even has the name "Bela" in the Return version. I found this quite appropriate. In this movie the cross protected you from vampires, and skip the garlic. The assumptions common to Christian religion were emphasized with not one sign of the religion itself. The movie was scrupulous in its treatment of a specific version of Christianity. Only the cross itself is important. Never mind why. It just is.
Once Christianity dominates a culture, the problem becomes which variant is the correct one. The movie avoids any possible conflict of dogma by being squeaky clean on any expressions of actual faith. Not one word with religious meaning is ever spoken, for any religion or any variant thereof. The man of the cloth, called always "Doctor" wears a hassock and sports the backwards collar but that's all. He does not, I repeat, does not wear a cross himself. It would have to be selected from a plain cross used by protestants and a crucifix favored by Catholics. There are no churches and no other religious symbols. None. Not even in the graveyard. Whatever the viewer knows about the Dracula story, he or she is expected to know far more about religion, and does not need anything at all explained.
Religions other than Christian did not exist in 1958. The heroine is named Rachel, but that is a word from the bible, not from the Jewish faith. At the stabbing ceremony at the beginning of the movie, the priest was seen muttering, but no words could be made out and nobody else there paid any attention.
1958 was a glorious time of unity, or blandness, depending on your point of view. The only Jews were the people who made the movie. Outside of that, there weren't any. Neither were there any Muslims, Pagans, Hindus, Buddhists, or anything else you can name.
The movie would be impossible to follow if the viewers weren't already thoroughly trained in the orthodox Dracula story, movie version with Bela Lugosi. But once thoroughly competent in the 1931 movie you can explore nuances of teenage love, and promote religion and nationalism in your new version. And how absolutely wonderful it is to live in America instead of Europe and all those other nasty places where they speak English with a funny accent and suffer continuously in the dark and cold. Everywhere but here, he people are starving and want nothing more than to come to America. To Freedom. They will abandon weeping family in the old country to mount the train to Freedom, having saved their money for decades to do so. It's quite touching to look at, marred a bit if you have actually been to the country in question and seen how much better they are living than we are.
I became teary eyed when the girl insisted that the boy open the car door for her. I was 16 years old in 1958 and remember learning all those rules in high school. She wore a sweater and long full skirt. I did not notice bobby socks but I'd bet on it. She had the cutest pony tail, and ears. Ears without ornament and without piercings. And blond hair that was supposed to be real. And the hero was the male version of the same, without the pony tail. Handsome, well spoken, and polite. Poor but honest middle class, these folks were, and nothing else ever appears in the movie. It isn't about social class or economics. It's about the evil of vampires and the struggle of righteousness against it.
Uplifting. 99 and 44/100 percent pure. I should type this up and post it to by blog.
And how does it turn out? You can't guess? The Heroine, frightened and almost, but not quite, overcome by Dracula is rescued by her equally frightened boy friend. He then holds up the cross and advances on Dracula. Dracula walks backwards into a very conveniently located pit with a very conveniently positioned stake which pierces his heart with the required quarts of black blood (The movie isn't in color). He then changes into a skeleton right in front of your very eyes and everybody lives happily ever after. No unanswered questions or lingering doubt in this one, friends. I halfway expected the entire cast to come out and bow to the audience. I felt like standing up and repeating the pledge of allegiance, or singing the national anthem.