THE CLASSIC BOOK AND MOVIE QUOTES: “Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!” [1924 novel]
“Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make!” [1931 movie]
Dracula
One of his most famous lines in the novel by Bram Stoker and the popular Universal Studios movie adaptation
In Stoker’s novel and the 1931 film Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula, the title character says the “children of the night” lines about the wolves howling outside his castle in Transylvania. The book and movie versions of the quotation are almost identical, with the exception of the word the in front of children in the book.
Dracula says the lines to Jonathan Harker, a British legal solicitor who is sent to Dracula’s home to facilitate the Count’s purchase of a property in England. The quote comes early in the book (in Chapter 2) and in the movie, as do two other famous quotes that are well known to Dracula fans.
As Harker enters the Count’s spooky castle, Dracula greets him with the words: “I am Dracula, and I bid you welcome.” In the 1931 movie, this is broken into two lines, separated by a comment by Harker.
In the movie, as Dracula is standing on the huge stone stairway after welcoming Harker, they hear the wolves howling and Lugosi speaks the famous “children of the night” lines. Shortly thereafter, in the next scene, Dracula serves some food to Harker, then pours him a glass of “very old wine.”
“Aren’t you drinking?” asks Harker. Lugosi, smiling, says a third line immortalized by the movie: “I never drink – wine.”
This chuckleworthy nod to the fact that Dracula survives solely by drinking human blood is not in the novel. In that, as Harker is preparing to eat, Dracula apologizes for not joining him, saying: “I have dined already, and I do not sup.” He does offer Harker some “very old tokay wine.” But he says nothing about never drinking wine himself. |
CLASSIC COMEDY SPOOF VERSION #2:
“Children of the night. What a mess they make.”
Actor Leslie Nielsen, as Dracula, in Dead and Loving It (1995)
In this campy version, Nielsen says the line after pointing to some bats flying above him as he stands on the stone stairway of his castle. The camera briefly shows a dollop of bat poop on one of the stone steps. Then we see Nielsen’s shoe step on the poo, causing him to slip and fall down the stairs.
|
NOT-SO-CLASSIC MOVIE VARIATION #1: “Fame has bitten Robert Pattinson...His mere arrival at a promotional autograph session is enough to set off a sonic frenzy of squeals and shrieks. Tweens, teens and Twilight moms scream en masse with pent-up desire and devotion, delighted to just gaze upon their idol in the flesh. Listen to them. Children of the night. What a racket they make.”
Susan Wloszczyna
American movie reviewer
In an article about Pattinson in USA TODAY published in 2008, at a time when the first movie in the Twilight series was suddenly making him a huge celebrity – at least among teenage movie fans.
Pattinson has suggested he’s not personally a fan of the movies that made him world famous. In one interview, when asked what his view of the series might be if he weren't in it, he responded: “I would just mindlessly hate it.” |
NOT-SO-CLASSIC MOVIE VARIATION #2: “The entertainment value in Argento’s sad, befuddled decline wears thin before long; after that it’s just boring. It isn’t until the 70-minute mark that the promise of the opening credits – ‘and Rutger Hauer as Van Helsing’ – is fulfilled, and by then it’s too late for anything to salvage the wreck. Listen to the children of the night! What garbage they make.”
Eric D. Snider
American movie reviewer
In his review of Dario Argento’s movie Dracula 3D, posted on Movies.com site on May 20, 2012
|
