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DRACULA 1931 . (Universal) Actors: Bela Lugosi, David Manners, Dwight Frye, Helen Chandler, Edward Van Sloan. Director: Tod Browning. |
Tod Browning�s classic is the most important vampire movie ever made. Bela Lugosi, an immigrant from Hungary who spoke little English, was perfect for the role that made him famous and forever typecast him. Dracula, as scripted by playwright Hamilton Deane in the 1920s was a suave, cultured, continental nobleman who covered his evil intentions well. He felt at home everywhere, especially in a proper English drawing room, even in the most tense situations. Lugosi brought an expected sensuality to the role, which was only recognized later, when thousands of letters from female fans poured in. Lugosi�s Dracula, with his penetrating eyes and debonair manner, presented a very seductive anti-hero to the audiences that filled the theater. Even without the fangs (they weren�t added until the 195�s), Lugosi set most of the popular images of Dracula and the vampire. Possessed of a widow�s peak, vampires dress in evening clothes, complete with the all-important opera cape. Only in recent years have male cinematic vampire tended to deviate from that standard dress.
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The script for the 1931 movie version (and its Spanish counterpart, shot simultaneously) was the John Balderston revision of the original Hamilton Dean play, written for the New York stage. That play was further edited by screenwriter Louis Bloomfield, who seems to be responsible for changing the Carfax estate, Dracula�s London home base, to Carfax Abbey. He also began to provide answers for some of the questions non dealt with in the novel, such as the reason for Reinfield�s madness. The movie opens with Renfield, not Jonathan Harker, traveling to Transylvania in search of Count Dracula, an exciting part of the book dropped from the earlier stage presentations. Reinfield (Dwight Frye) completes the sale of property in England to the Count, but in the process is victimized by Dracula�s three vampire brides. He returns to England completely insane. |
In England, Dracula begins to target, and then quickly disposes of Lucy Westenra (Francis Dale) before turning his attention to Mina Seward (Helen Chandler). In the novel, Lucy was a young girl with three suitors. As in the play, the movie collapsed the three men into one, Dr. John Seward (Herbert Bunston), who ws transformed into Mina�s middle-aged father. Emerging to counter Dracula, of course, is Dr. Abraham Van Helsing (Edward van Sloan), the knowledge and grandfatherly vampire hunter.
He confirms Dracula�s true nature with a mirror and then leads the charge to destroy him. At the end of the movie, he interrupts the credits to deliver a famous speech on the possible reality of vampires. Tod Browning had previously collaborated with Lon Chaney on another featured-length vampire movie, London After Midnight. A look at the Spanish version, shot on the same stage at Universal each evening after the English-speaking cast was finished, reveals Browning�s limited use of the camera, especially in the scenes in the castle. The Spanish version was cinematographically superior. The body of the film also comes off as exactly what it was, a stage play brought to the screen. Still, the limitations of the directing and camera work fade beside the enormous (and lasting) impact of the film on popular culture. Lugosi�s Count attained a mythical status in modern society worldwide and fathered one of the most intriguing movie genres to grace the screen.
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Dracula was to open on Firday the 13th, in February of 1931. Manhattan was plastered with blood-red notices and the movie had a relatively successful eight-day run. With a silent version prepared for those theaters not yet equipped for sound, it opened nationally with little fanfare; Universal was in a financial crunch at the time, and its future was very uncertain. In spite of the lack of publicity and the hard critics (who as a rule tend to dislike horror movies), Dracula caught on and became the largest grossing movie of the year for Universal. The studio did not close and is still with us today. |
The one who suffered was Lugosi. While he had played Dracula on the New York stage, he was by no means the first choice for the movie role. Lon Chaney was chosen, but he died of cancer. Several other actores turned it down. Little appreciated, Lugosi was paid a small salary commensurate with the (lack of) respect accorded with him by industry types. The movie made him a star, but also typecast him, and he was unable to break out of horror movies and into the kind of roles that promised mainstream stardom. In later years, when horror movies went through periods of decline, he was often without work and living in poverty, occasionally having to resort to playing a parody of himself. In more recent years, other actors such as Christopher Lee and Frank Langella would learn from his mistake.