Reel Classics: Dracula

It is October and the Hallowed Eve is upon us.  What bet­ter Reel Classic to look at for this eerie and spooky occa­sion than the 1931 Universal Pictures hor­ror clas­sic Dracula star­ring Bela Lugosi.  This was the first of the Universal Pictures long line of clas­sic hor­ror fea­tures that includ­ed Frankenstein (1931), The Mummy (1932), The Invisible Man (1933) and The Wolf Man (1941).  Each of these films had mul­ti­ple sequels that con­tin­ued into the late 1950s (which includ­ed sev­er­al fea­tures with Abbott and Costello cross­ing paths with the creatures). 

Dracula was not the first film adap­ta­tion of Bram Stoker’s famous nov­el, but it was the first sound adap­ta­tion.  The film was an adapt­ed from a 1924 stage play of the same title writ­ten by Hamilton Deane and John Balderston.  They had based their work on Stoker’s 1897 nov­el.  The star of the stage pro­duc­tion was Bela Lugosi who reprised the role in the film.  His tran­si­tion to the film ver­sion was not easy for him how­ev­er.  The stu­dio ini­tial­ly planned for silent film star Lon Chaney (The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Phantom Of The Opera) to play the role of Count Dracula but he died pri­or to the film­ing and Lugosi was cho­sen as the lead.  An inter­est­ing side note—Chaney’s son, Lon Chaney Jr (also known as the Wolf Man in the uni­ver­sal series) would play Dracula’s son Count Alucard (Dracula spelled back­wards) in the 1943 film Son Of Dracula.

Lugosi was very much into the role and David Manners, who played John Harker, stat­ed “I can still see Lugosi, parad­ing up and down the stage, pos­ing in front of a full-length mir­ror, throw­ing his cape over his shoul­der and shout­ing ‘I am Dracula!”  He was mys­te­ri­ous and nev­er real­ly said any­thing to the oth­er mem­bers of the cast except good morn­ing when he arrived and good night when he left.  He was polite, but always distant.” 

Now that we have some back­ground to the film, let us look at this clas­sic sto­ry.  It begins with Renfield (Dwight Frye) trav­el­ing by coach through the Carpathian moun­tains in east­ern Europe.  He is on his way to vis­it the Count Dracula in his cas­tle to assist in the final trans­fer of the prop­er­ty Carfax Abbey in London to the Count.  Stopping at a local vil­lage inn before arriv­ing at the cas­tle he is warned by vil­lagers to not go there.  Ignoring the vil­lagers warn­ings he pro­ceeds to the cas­tle and is wel­comed by the eerie Count.

Dracula plans to sail to England to move into the London prop­er­ty.  We learn that he is a vam­pire as he hyp­no­tizes Renfield and then drinks his blood.  Renfield becomes psy­chot­ic and finds him­self a ser­vant to Count Dracula.  The Count takes Renfield along with a cof­fin and sails on the ship Vesta, feed­ing on the blood of the crew mem­bers at night.  When the ship arrives in London only one liv­ing per­son is found on board—the mad Renfield who is then sent to a san­i­tar­i­um for his per­ceived men­tal ill­ness.  The facil­i­ty is oper­at­ed by Dr. Seward (Herbert Bunston) and hap­pens to be locat­ed next to Carfax Abbey. 

Arriving in London we soon meet the remain­ing char­ac­ters in the sto­ry.  Count Dracula is intro­duced to Dr. Seward’s daugh­ter, Mina (Helen Chandler) who is engaged to John Harker (David Manners).  We also meet Mina’s friend Lucy (Frances Dade) who quick­ly becomes Dracula’s next victim.

We meet Professor Van Helsing (Edward Van Sloan) who has been inter­view­ing Renfield and has become sus­pi­cious of the Count.  Van Helsing won­ders is it pos­si­ble that Count Dracula could be a vam­pire?  We then learn that Mina is the next intend­ed victim. 

As is my cus­tom, no spoil­ers here, but we find Van Helsing, with the aid of Harker, work­ing to deter­mine the true  nature of Count Dracula and to pro­tect Mina from him.

The film was both a com­mer­cial and crit­i­cal suc­cess and Universal Pictures released lat­er that same year Frankenstein star­ring Boris Karloff.  Thus began the Universal col­lec­tion of hor­ror and crea­ture features.

The film pre­miered in February 1931 at the Roxy Theatre in New York City.  Newspaper arti­cles report­ed that audi­ence mem­bers faint­ed from shock, which spurred atten­dance.  Within 48 hours of open­ing at The Roxy it had sold 50,000 tick­ets.  Dracula became one of Universal Pictures high­est gross­ing films in 1931 and was the sixth most pop­u­lar film of that year. 

For the most part, crit­ics’ reviews were pos­i­tive.  The crit­ic for The New York Times described it as “the best of the many mys­tery films,” prais­ing Tod Browning’s direc­tion as “imag­i­na­tive.”  Variety high­light­ed the “remark­ably effec­tive back­ground and creepy atmos­phere” and also wrote “It is dif­fi­cult to think of any­body who could quite match the per­for­mance in the vam­pire part of Bela Lugosi, even to the faint fla­vor of for­eign speech that fits so neatly.” 

In dis­cussing the “creepy atmos­phere” I think it is wor­thy of men­tion that many of the tech­niques used by the direc­tor Tod Browning came from the era of silent films.  Extended peri­ods of silence and close ups for dra­mat­ic effect were com­mon in the silent films.  Tod Browning had made his name in the silent era (start­ing in 1915) and report­ed­ly was not as com­fort­able in the sound era.  He only direct­ed six more films which also includ­ed the cult clas­sic Freaks.

The suc­cess of Dracula  spurred Universal Pictures sequels includ­ing Dracula’s Daughter (1936) and the above men­tioned Son Of Dracula (1943).   

Though many actors have since played the role of Dracula in film, includ­ing Christopher Lee in the Hammer film series, most peo­ple think of Bela Lugosi when the think of Dracula.  It is the role that defined Lugosi even though he appeared in almost 70 oth­er films after Dracula.  Although he did appear in oth­er films as a vam­pire, he appeared only once more as Count Dracula.  That was the 1948 film Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein.  Though he lob­bied hard for roles that were not hor­ror-relat­ed, he essen­tial­ly became type­cast as the evil, lurk­ing char­ac­ter and appeared as such in mul­ti­ple films. 

In 1999 film crit­ic Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars and praised both Lugosi’s per­for­mance and the film’s cin­e­matog­ra­phy.  He also includ­ed it in his list of “Great Movies.”  John Oliver of the British Film Institute stat­ed that Dracula estab­lished the “pop­u­lar on-screen image of the vam­pire” and that “the cin­e­mat­ic hor­ror genre was born with the release of Dracula.”  Rotten Tomatoes Critics Consensus reads “Bela Lugosi’s time­less por­tray­al of Dracula in this creepy and atmos­pher­ic 1931 film has set the stan­dard for major vam­pir­ic roles since.”  The icon­ic role for Lugosi was both a bless­ing and a curse.  As  stat­ed in a Turner Classic Movies review:  “Some actors become so indeli­bly asso­ci­at­ed with their most famous roles it becomes dif­fi­cult for audi­ences to accept them in any oth­er part.  Although Bela Lugosi made near­ly 70 more films...few film­go­ers today remem­ber him in a sin­gle one of them....”  He strug­gled finan­cial­ly and often would make appear­ances dressed as Dracula to earn mon­ey.  When he died (1956) he was buried in his Dracula’s cape.  To again quote TCM:  “When he looked in the mir­ror, did he only see the Transylvanian count star­ing back at him?  Or, like the vam­pire char­ac­ter he por­trayed, did he see noth­ing at all?”

In an inter­view Lugosi’s son, Bela Lugosi Jr., stat­ed:  “At the end of my dad’s life he tru­ly believed that he had been for­got­ten.  He would nev­er have imag­ined the impres­sion his por­tray­al has made in our world, or that every actor play­ing Count Dracula or a vam­pire after him would be influ­enced by his per­for­mance, and inspired to repli­cate his depic­tion of the icon­ic char­ac­ter.  Bela Lugosi is Dracula.  He has become an icon, and he has left his mark on film his­to­ry.  That is a lega­cy of which he would be very proud.” 

In 2000 Dracula was select­ed by the Library of Congress for preser­va­tion in the National Film Registry.  In an essay by Gary D. Rhodes, Ph. D  at the National Film Registry, he wrote:  “The inclu­sion of “Dracula” in the National Film Registry is anoth­er tes­ta­ment to its last­ing fame and ongo­ing influ­ence.  In the film, Dracula claims that vam­pires will “live through the cen­turies to come.”  So too will Tod Browning’s film.” 

The Internet Movie Database rates Dracula at 7.4 of 10.  Rotten Tomatoes gives it a Critics Score of 94% and an Audience Score of 82%. 

In search­ing my Roku device I found it avail­able for free stream­ing on three sites:  Free Movies +, Free Movie Classics and Nightmare Before Christmas Plus.  The Clark County Public Library also has a copy of the DVD on the shelf. 

One last com­ment about the film.  There is a mem­o­rable scene when Renfield first enters the cas­tle.  Count Dracula is slow­ly com­ing down the stairs and he hears the howl­ing of wolves in the dis­tance.  He stops, and says “Listen to them.  Children of the night.  What music they make.”  I ask you to lis­ten tonight to the sounds of the night.  Is that the sound of the “chil­dren of the night?”  Or maybe it’s just your neigh­bor’s dog want­i­ng in.  Happy Halloween!!!!!

Information for this Reel Classic review was gath­ered from Internet Movie Data Base (IMDb), Rotten Tomatoes, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and Wikipedia.

I’ll be back soon with the next Reel Classic, but before I leave you with the trail­er below let me remind you that if you enjoy these clas­sic movies please join me on the sec­ond Tuesday of each month at 6:00 PM at the Clark County Public Library for “Ron Kibbey’s Comedy Classics.”  I present a clas­sic com­e­dy film usu­al­ly accom­pa­nied by a vin­tage car­toon.  Popcorn and drinks are pro­vid­ed.  More infor­ma­tion about the next film is avail­able on the library’s web­site and Facebook page, as well as WinCity Voices Facebook page.