MovieChat Forums > Dracula (1958) Discussion > Same room over and over again!

Same room over and over again!


When Harker first enters Dracula's castle, we see a stairway to his left and a big room in front of him. He notices another door, goes through it, and is once again in the same room--except now, it's dressed differently. The stairway is still there, however. Now we see a huge table and a fireplace to the right, on the other side of the room.

Dracula arrives, introduces himself, and brings Harker to his room. They walk up the stairway and along a hallway, then turn left...and they're at the bottom of the same stairway again (only now, it's at a different angle, we see it face-on). We cannot see the rest of the room to the right. Later, when Harker hears a noise in another room, he enters, and it's apparently a library, dominated by a huge globe. To the right is a fireplace, the same fireplace that had been burning when Harker arrived. To the left is a chair surrounded by curtains, but if you look closely and quickly, you can see the stone staircase hidden in the shadows.

So, Hammer was very efficient and knew how to dress sets beautifully and economically. But once the same room was pointed out to me, I notice it every time!

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Kind of ingenious isn't it? And welcome to the club of those who watch these movies & deconstruct them by how they were made, seeing through the facade. You can have more fun watching Hammer films made through 1966 and looking for this marvelous room. They shot mummy movies there and dressed up the outside of the building to look like Egypt. After 1966 they filmed at Pinewood but you can play "Spot the Woods" and look for the trees at Black Park. Almost all Hammer films woodland scenes were staged in the same small patch of woods, which conveniently had a nice "crossroads" of cart paths that turns up in dozens of films including some made by Tigon and Amicus. I recall seeing "Conqueror Worm" after getting to know the Hammer locations and being startled by a scene set on one of Hammer's preferred cart paths in Black Park. All of a sudden it wasn't so scary anymore.

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