After the success of a revival of the original play on Broadway, actor Frank Langella reprised his role as the Count in the 1979 film directed by "Saturday Night Fever" director John Badham, with Laurence Olivier starring as Van Helsing. Like "Horror," this version renamed Mina as Lucy, though her character was essentially the same, and Dr. Seward is Lucy's father, though the action was moved up to Edwardian England despite the novel being written in 1897. The film underperformed at the box office and received mixed reviews. "Director John Badham and Frank Langella pull off a handsome, moody rendition, more romantic than menacing," Variety staff wrote in a review, but the New York Times critic Janet Maslin said it was "by no means lacking in stylishness; if anything, it's got style to spare. But so many of its sequences are at fever pitch, and the mood varies so drastically from episode to episode, that the pace becomes pointless, even taxing."
