Talk:House of Dracula

Untitled

The phrase "confined to a wheelchair" is demeaning, offensive, and oppressive and should not be used here. A person is never "confined to a wheelchair": he doesn't shower or sleep in his wheelchair. When he rides a plane he rides in a seat, not his wheelchair. "Confined" is inaccurate and conveys an inaccurate stereotype of inability of wheelchair users to engage in sexual, social, travel and physical pursuits.

Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Discuss:Why_is_Charles_Krauthammer_in_a_wheelchair#ixzz1Z7NXhrIG — Preceding unsigned comment added by Denverjason (talk • contribs) 03:02, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I just removed the sentence, since it was an unnecessary detail anyway. Sp4cetiger (talk) 08:13, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:House of Dracula/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: GhostRiver (talk · contribs) 05:01, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]


I'll look at this tomorrow when I am more awake! — GhostRiver 05:01, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Good Article review progress box
Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV ()
3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant ()
Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

Infobox and lede

  • "and later by Lawrence Stewart Talbot / The Wolf Man," → "and later by Larry Talbot, the Wolf Man"
Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 07:40, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Talbot survives the fall" → "He survives the fall"
  • Link "Frankenstein's monster" in the first paragraph, delink in the second
Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 07:40, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • The plot summary is a little dense for a lede section; covering that Drac and the Wolf Man are searching for cures, that Talbot finds Frankenstein's monster, and that Edelmann becomes transformed into a monster himself should cover it without the current levels of detail"
I've tried to shorten it up. Andrzejbanas (talk) 07:40, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • The title "Dracula Vs. The Wolf Man" is not mentioned below; the body has the order of the "vs." flipped
Fixed. Wolf Man vs. Dracula is the correct title. Andrzejbanas (talk) 07:40, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Whatever the film title is, it should be italicized in the sentence beginning "The film eventually went into production"
Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 07:40, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Missing period after "put on hold for nearly six months"
Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 07:40, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "screenings; retrospective" → "screenings, while retrospective"
Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 07:40, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Plot

  • Plot summary is 612 words, under the 700-word max, good job
Right on. Andrzejbanas (talk) 07:44, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 07:44, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Dr. Franz Edelmann. The count explains" → "Dr. Franz Edelmann and explains that"
Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 07:44, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "can cure vampirism." → "may heal him."
Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 07:44, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 07:44, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Wouldn't this go against WP:EGG though? Andrzejbanas (talk) 07:44, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I would say not, as WP:EGG mostly refers to when you think something will link to a common term and then it doesn't; since Dr. Niemann is original to this particular film, someone wanting to know about the character would end up there anyway, if that makes any sense. — GhostRiver 15:10, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 07:44, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "and tosses her body" → "and throws her body"
Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 07:44, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Cast

  • Good

Production

Development

  • "whose script" → "the script of which"
Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 07:53, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comma after "to be Ford Beebe"
Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 07:53, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comma after "The Invisible Man's Revenge (1944)"
Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 07:53, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "two film deal" → "two-film deal"
Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 07:53, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Some reordering is in order so that we know the working title was Destiny by the time we get to the studio memo; currently we only get "titled Destiny" in the second para
Done, and re-arranged a pinch. Andrzejbanas (talk) 07:53, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
linked. Andrzejbanas (talk) 07:53, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Pre-production

  • "Dracula was being portrayed again by Carradine as he had in House of Frankenstein." → "Carradine instead portrayed Dracula, reprising his role from House of Frankenstein."
Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 07:54, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comma after "Dracula in 1986"
Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 07:54, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Filming

  • Comma after "difficult for the actor"
Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 07:57, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comma after "rushed to his dressing room"
Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 07:57, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "To save on lumber and nails for the war effort, existing sets were reused. The props and sets were from earlier films including The Invisible Woman and The Mummy's Hand." → "To save on lumber and nails for the war effort, existing props and sets from films such as The Invisible Woman and The Mummy's Hand were reused."
Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 07:57, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comma after "reused in House of Dracula"
Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 07:57, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Release

Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 07:58, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "placed House of Dracula earning" → "placed House of Dracula's earnings"
Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 07:58, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "being beaten by" → "that honor went to"
  • Comma after "Lady on a Train (1945)"
Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 07:58, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "which also included"
Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 07:58, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "release don" → "released on"
Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 07:58, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Reception

  • ""... invaded," adding "the ..."" → ""... invaded", adding, "the ...""
Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 08:01, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comma after "substituting quantity for imagination"
Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 08:01, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Outside of New York"
done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 08:01, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comma after ""is the more interesting of the two"" but outside the quotes
Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 08:01, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nix the parenthetical, we know the premise from reading the plot summary
Fair enough, removed. Andrzejbanas (talk) 08:01, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "believability" should be in single quotes per MOS:QWQ
Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 08:01, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Legacy

  • Comma after "J. Arthur Rank"
added , Andrzejbanas (talk) 08:04, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "$4.6 million which led to it dropping many actors from their contract roster including Chaney." → "$4.6 million. They responded by dropping many actors from their contract roster, including Chaney."
Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 08:04, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • " company now called Universal-International had" → "company, now called Universal–International, had"
Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 08:04, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Linked. Andrzejbanas (talk) 08:04, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comma after "and Frankenstein's monster"
Done. I believe you mean the first time it's mentioned here. Andrzejbanas (talk) 08:04, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, my apologies. — GhostRiver 15:10, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

References

  • Good

General comments

  • Images are properly licensed and relevant
  • No stability concerns in the revision history
  • Earwig score looks good

That's all I have! Looks like a lot, but it's mostly minor grammatical things. Putting on hold for now; feel free to ping me with questions, and let me know when you're ready for me to take another look! — GhostRiver 03:33, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @GhostRiver:, I believe I have gone through everything! Is there anything else you require from me? Andrzejbanas (talk) 08:05, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I made a couple of minor follow-up edits on my own, and I think that this one is now ready to go! Good job! — GhostRiver 15:10, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Music credit in the infobox

An editor has included Milton Suskind (aka Edgar Fairchild) under the music composer credit in the infobox. They cite this book here which does describe him as the films music composer. However, in the credits (per my copy of the blu ray) he is referred to as the "Music director". As does the AFI and the BFI. As the book Universal Horror states in the article "The film's score reuses pieces from Black Friday, Man-Made Monster, The Wolf Man, The Ghost of Frankenstein, Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, House of Frankenstein, The Scarlet Claw, and The Invisible Man's Revenge." On checking my Blu-ray of the film, the opening credits have him cited as the "Music Director". While the one book that is not a very in-depth study on the production or history of the film does refer to him casually as a composer, the other research does not indicate what/how exactly he contributed to the film. I would suggest either re-naming the field in the infobox with an extra tag to give him his actual credit, or removing it as "The purpose of an infobox is to summarize, but not supplant, the key facts that appear in an article." (see WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE). I have yet to confirm what a "music director" does or does not do, but calling him a composer does not sound appropriate. Andrzejbanas (talk) 18:22, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Andrzejbanas The French journal article had a bit more on his original composed music in the film if I am remembering correctly (I'd have to dig it up again). If you prefer using the title music director in the info box that is fine since that was his official title. Music directors at that time did a combination act in crafting together a score from both original and stock material. It's hard to know exactly without a deeper analysis in secondary sources of the score to what extent this score's material was original versus recycled. To my knowledge, nobody has really done that, but I do think there is some evidence in sources that at least some of the music was new and composed by him. It may be that he wrote some new material, but also used recycled stock footage, and/or orchestrated/arranged older material. That was the practice in film music departments of the era. Best.4meter4 (talk) 18:37, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for responding @4meter4:! I know that most of the Universal Horror productions around this era are kind of notorious for recycling music. Sadly the Universal Horror films book doesn't really go into detail on it (they do state for another film that someone is credited as a music director that their contributions were basically limited to the opening credits and closing, and all other music was re-used from other films), but of course, we can't clarify that. I've tried to confirm what a "Music Director" does from some sort of source outside the director of a music orchestra, but haven't been able to find any serious confirmation about it within how Universal produced their films at the time.
I'm quite happy on the compromise to credit him as the music director in the infobox. This will probably be easiest to prevent some other odd music drive-by edits from users trying to fill in gaps in an infobox. :) Andrzejbanas (talk) 18:44, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There was actually a good source for that when I was researching Suskind, and for the life of me I can't remember now which book or journal that was in. It gave a nice description of the Universal music department and what all the jobs entailed; including music director. I just tried looking back in the some of the cited materials to see whether it was one of those with no luck. I didn't necessarily use every source I read so it might have been in something else. But the gist was, the music director would conduct the score for recordings of any new music; select stock material as filler; and make necessary cuts and arrangements to fill the necessary time (which often involved recording something new if a seemless bit of stock footage couldn't work). They also were employed as orchestrators/arrangers for music composed by others. They also might use their own new compositions in combination with old material and put together some sort of medley to tie the whole thing together. The amount of old versus new material varied from film to film, and many times music directors wrote more new music or did more new orchestrating/arranging than what they should have been credited for. Best.4meter4 (talk) 19:06, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Argh. That's frustrating. I think if we could clarify that, as that's good info for sure, but with the excess of music borrowed from other films, it would be hard to articulate to an audience what he did or did not do without specific information (because so much of the score is "recycled" per the source). While i'm not sure if that means re-recorded or simply reused as stock material (i'm presuming the later, as a cash strapped studio like Universal was happy to re-use stock footage or even entire bits from previous films during this period). If you could hunt it out, it would be useful perhaps even for its own article. In the meantime, I have requested an additional "music director" tag at the infobox talk page that would only be used when there is no "composer" credit. Turns out one can't just add an extra tag, which makes sense, as I'm sure it would cause a lot of headaches for wikiproject. Andrzejbanas (talk) 19:09, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We could just credit him somewhere in the body of the article as the music director. I'll allow you to decide how that would best fit. A note on Universal and its music, they actually had an in house orchestra that was kept busy and was basically recording new music all the time in that period. Imagine having a recording symphony working full time. That is what Universal (and most of the other major studios) did from the 1940s into the 1950s. It wasn't hard for them to put down new material rapidly. The music directors basically mapped the entire film; figured out how to fit the music to the film cut by the film editors (or it worked the other way where the film editors would cut the film to fit the length of the music; it was a team thing); and took over any new music/arrangements to the orchestra and had them play it in the recording studio on site with little to no rehearsal. Stock footage of course was used to cut costs, but most films had some new material in them by the music director that often went uncredited. Figuring out what all was old what was new would be a headache for a researcher because you would need to prove the material hadn't been used before.4meter4 (talk) 19:45, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Update. I just put music director in parentheses in the information box. That ought to work.4meter4 (talk) 20:05, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Probably okay for now, but like, hopefully my push for an edit will go forward. I would include it in the prose but if it's just reiterating what's already said in the info box with just a sentence, I'm not sure what's a good way to phrase it. Andrzejbanas (talk) 20:08, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
allikas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:House_of_Dracula